


Tropical Antidepressant Groucho

by petrichorloop



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Existential Angst, M/M, Setting: Deserted Island, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrichorloop/pseuds/petrichorloop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded on an island in the middle of somewhere, Jonghyun and Minho do their best to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tropical Antidepressant Groucho

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pellmellbells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pellmellbells/gifts).



> No spoilers in the end notes.

Minho buries his nose into Jonghyun's hair and inhales deeply for the fourth time that day. The previous times he let pass without question, thought at some level it was his imagination. Maybe it didn’t even happen a total of four times and four times is one too late for Jonghyun to question it, to feel weird about. But the confusion, or at least puzzlement, is showing on his face because that's when Minho says, "you smell good, hyung." Jonghyun remembers his favorite scent, a Hermes, light and airy but forward too. How can either of them smell 'good' without a real shower and scrub? At least now, unlike before, the weather is cooler. He's not become familiar with a person's smell, their body without topical alteration, for long enough to recall it here and now. Jonghyun says upon impulse, "I think I know what you mean." Minho moves in to lay closer though not cloyingly so, his nose near the crown of Jonghyun's hair. He knows the various scents that Minho owns —he wears most anything that fans gift him— because Minho used to grab any jacket to guard against the cold knowing that most of them were Jonghyun's and he didn't mind. Besides, Kibum is the one who minds the most and most of his stuff is squirreled away in his room out of their reach.  
  
He struggles to identify the way Minho smells now, not having noted it in particular. Minho's scent is neither good nor bad. It's not all sweat and germs. Minho has a steady feel, a ripeness of a long and good hard days work. Once, maybe twice, Jonghyun got a whiff of something that smelled vaguely like a savory dish only to find moments later that the source is Minho. Those moments disturb him as much as they amuse him. Thankfully he catches it in time before commenting to Minho about how he thought he'd smelled food. And right now, Minho lying next to him, both of their bodies having absorbed so much sea and rain water, so much fruit and sand and smoke, so much freedom and uncertainty, so much guilt and yet so much peace, what can be separated as Minho, and how could Jonghyun describe it?  
  
Earlier it had been hot but now there is a steady rain, sipping away at the day's accumulated heat. At least they have solid shelter from the rain. Jonghyun aches, right in the middle of his chest and wishes for the thousandth time he had his laptop. Or at least pen and paper to record these thoughts. Toasty, secure, and the pressure remains. He is prepared though; memory readies itself and Jonghyun records.  
  
   
  
   
  
  
  
  
“Hyung, you're awake,” Minho says, voice soft against a background of an intermittent sound Jonghyun's brain has yet to identify. His eyes are almost sealed shut with crust, mouth is dry, lips are salty, and he is so, so thirsty.  
  
Jonghyun feels his head being hoisted on a lap, presumably Minho's, and water is tilted to his lips. His hand finds a way to the container and grasps around it, fingers overlapping Minho's. He can feel that his fingernails have residue underneath them. His body aches all over, sticky and creaky and strained. Jonghyun rubs, picks and wipes at his eyes before opening them, squinting up to see sky and Minho's furrowed eyebrows looking down. There are clouds, a seeming innocent presence.  
  
“Where are we?” Jonghyun hears himself rasp. Minho sighs as he looks up and his lips purse into a line.  
  
“Let's just say we're lucky to be alive.”  
  
Minho helps Jonghyun sit up. The setting that greets Jonghyun has his eyes impossibly wide and his head reeling.  
  
It is a beach with off-white sand that is more gravel than grain, the horizon a long difference of a blue and a gray, the sea rolling in and out, its waters variously green. To their left are cliff faces with vegetation hanging off the edge, dangling toward the sea. To their right, water rolls up onto a slope of land, right where tree trunks rise from the ground. The wind is strong, blowing inland from the sea, its scent unknowable. Being both a source of healing and a dumping site of all creatures, the scent is wholly fresh, as though a bold conveyance of the sea's vastness, its power. There are birds squawking in the distance over the sound of leaves rustling and waves roiling the shore. Jonghyun takes it all in, and the sound too of Minho breathing, existing, right next to him.  
  
“I can't believe... this. All of it.” Jonghyun shivers, all processes limping along in his mind, memory at once hazy and clear with the physical impact of water, of gravity and calls for help. Screams. The life jacket around him is bulky and light. Minho is wearing one too.  
  
“How are you, hyung?” Minho asks. “You don't look so great, here, have some more water,” and offers the entire bottle to Jonghyun.  
  
After a drink Jonghyun returns the bottle to Minho, who closes it after finishing the last of the water. Jonghyun stands up slowly, stooped at first, and wipes as much of the debris from his clothes as possible. He takes off the life jacket and flexes his fingers and toes. His distressed jeans are stiff and unpleasant. After peeling off his jacket and straightening out his shirt, Jonghyun sits down again to take off his boots. Minho is staring off into the distance as Jonghyun loosens the laces of the boots, removes his feet, and squeezes out his socks.  
  
“I think that's our storm,” Minho says as he points out towards sea, a mass of gray with sheets of falling rain, portions of the sky like wide vertical swatches. The wind picks up and the tide rolls higher, obscuring the spot where Jonghyun was lying not a few minutes ago. “At least the rain will bring drinkable water. Or at least somewhat so.” Minho puts his shoes back on and stands up. He offers a hand to Jonghyun, pulls him up. “Are you hurt anywhere?” Minho asks.  
  
“I think I'm ok,” Jonghyun says as he pats his body up and then down. “You?”  
  
“I'm alright, and I'm glad you are too.” Minho walks, a posture of heavy shoulders, leading Jonghyun on a path parallel to the shoreline. “I've walked maybe a fraction of a kilometer. First, we need water and or food, and we need to find anyone else who has survived.”  
  
Jonghyun nods, still numb to the reality of the situation. One bit at a time. He blinks to test his vision, focuses on distant objects, feels around his eyes for the presence of contacts. He nearly stumbles into Minho, who puts an arm around him. Perhaps Minho sees Jonghyun's furious blinking, and it is then that Jonghyun notes that the whites of Minho's eyes are shot, their edges red.  
  
“I'm glad I have you,” Minho says, and Jonghyun rolls into Minho's side. They come to a halt. Minho a wide radius enclosing around Jonghyun, the wrap of arms more secure than the ground underneath their feet. He does not reply because he cannot. A sob shudders through his chest, his arms wrap around Minho and clutch at the shirt material. He attempts to calm himself down as best as he can with measured breathes, looks up toward the sky with blurry eyes and withdraws his arms from around Minho, into himself and looks down, tucks his chin to his chest. He concentrates on feeling Minho's arms and the circular motions on his back, as though the pressure of Minho's hug could recollect his entire self again. Jonghyun roughly inhales and wipes his hands up and down his face. Minho's hands move up to cover Jonghyun's hair as the first rain drops begin to fall, sound of their multiple impacts heavy and urgent.  
  
Jonghyun's exhales are still shallow when he says, “Go, Minho. I'll follow.”  
  
The rain arrives in torrents, at times moving horizontal due to strong winds, knocking over containers and the debris they collected earlier on the shore from a brief skim. There are shells of luggage, plastic bins, and surprisingly cups, bowls, all of which they rinse out as best as they could, and set in places where they caught rain water straight from the sky. They even find a deflated life raft, which they pull apart to lie flat. These containers frequently topple over from the wind. Both of them find rocks to rinse and place at the bottom of containers in order to stabilize them, but later decide they want to avoid germs from bird crap or who-knows-what and get more volume of water, anyway, so the rocks are never used.  
  
After what feels like two, perhaps three, hours they are soaking wet. The wind is calmer, no longer slapping them with water. Though it wasn't cold, wet clothes sap body heat. A cursory look at the ground, wet even in places of thicker vegetation overhanging, tells them that even if they did not go out to upright the containers they would be just as soggy.  
  
“I think we're gonna need to take off our clothes,” Jonghyun says. He is sitting with his chin on a knee, looks at Minho without turning his head, purposely moving only his eyeballs. Minho isn't shivering, but his hands are slowly kneading knuckles, his toes are pale, wrinkled and curled. Jonghyun thinks he himself will begin shivering soon. Minho looks at him and then diverts his eyes a split second later to the ground. Purses lips as he moves slowly to remove his black cardigan. Upon seeing Minho's bare arm, Jonghyun finally pushes his own body to do the same. Summoning the will to move is a difficult process. They don't look at each other, the piles of wet clothing lumped over their shoes.  
  
“Hyung,” Minho says, chin gesturing toward the beach. “Let's go make use of some of that water, now.”  
  
Slowly, they walk out from beneath the vegetation clad in only boxers, bare feet in their unfastened shoes, socks and the rest of their clothes in hand. They take drinks of water from a plastic bin, rinsing their hands and carefully ladling it into their mouths, thankful for each swallow. Then after having their fill, they splash water onto their clothes, wringing them out, hopefully less salty, less dirty each time. They rinse their hair and faces too, scratching at their scalp, rubbing through the rough unhealthy strands and shaking off water.  
  
The rain lightens to a medium drizzle and as far as they could see, the sky was still gray with no indication of the sun's position thus little idea of when night is to fall. They find rocks and tree branches to lay their clothes atop and drag the deflated raft back to their spot underneath the trees. Sitting on the raft, some of it still barely inflated, they stare out into the horizon. Jonghyun is hugging his knees and Minho folds his legs, criss-crossing them. But not a few minutes pass before Minho raises his knees and hugs them too. Both of their backs are slouched and their shoulders are touching. They lean slightly more into that touch, weight counter posed knowing the other won't move without warning, won't let them fall. The rain continues to fall, their collective whisper louder than the waves and the birds and the insects and the wind. Minho's breathing is imperceptible too, to Jonghyun.  
  
“Maybe we'll wake up tomorrow and this will turn out to be some fucking hidden camera trick,” Minho says.  
  
Jonghyun feels his mouth twitch. “Yeah, maybe.”  
  
“Are you tired?” Minho drops his legs again into a criss-cross form and pats his thigh. “You can sleep.”  
  
“You have to sleep too, though,” Jonghyun says. “Let's just—” Jonghyun stands up, trying to remember where to find those towels they found earlier on the shore. “Let's just both try to sleep. I need, I want something to cover, to be over me, though.” Jonghyun knows his sentences are incomplete as he walks a short distance to a long beach towel that is hanging on a branch. He wrings it out, shedding some water. “It's wet but it'll do.” Jonghyun lays down. “So?” he says to Minho who is still sitting. “Lay down.” He pats the spot next to where Minho is sitting. Minho's eyelids are drooping, his mouth unsmiling as he slowly maneuvers his body down.  
  
They are laying with their backs flat on the ground. The length of their arms are touching, their legs under the damp beach towel. Jonghyun remembers their life jackets but is too tired to retrieve them. Foam rectangles are softer than their heads on the ground, but the relief of sleep is closing in.  
  
“Hyung,” Minho says.  
  
“Hm.”  
  
“Don't think about tomorrow.” Minho moves his head to the side, the sound of his voice revolving with the angle, his hair making crunchy sounds against the plastic of the raft. “Just try to sleep.”  
  
Jonghyun closes his eyes and inhales, exhales. He thinks, and the thoughts tumble and wither. He listens to Minho breathe, sometimes matching his rhythm. Physical sensations are of discomfort but they are still indistinct, barely registering. They cannot afford to lay down to exhaustion but nothing can be done at this point, with night falling. He feels himself slip away from the sensation of the harsh, bumpy ground underneath his body, away from dew and cool humidity. He feels nothingness, then feels himself wake up and move deeper into the nearest heat source, back curling his body onto his side and legs tangling with those of another. Distantly, he can hear the chirp of insects and the roll of ocean waves.  
  
Morning is foggy when he comes to, his arm slung across Minho's body and Minho's arm around his back. His head is situated below Minho's, the concave space of torso is his first sight. Jonghyun looks up toward the trees, fog amongst the leaves. Minho is still asleep, his eyebrows pinching in the middle. Jonghyun is hungry but at least he's not feverish, not hot nor cold, and they're both still mostly unclothed. Jonghyun feels the sense of incredulity bloom in his mind, general and pervasive and slow-mo. Their surroundings, the entirety of the last twenty-four hours. Jonghyun moves to sit up and his muscles ache. Some of it is visible in the form of purple blots, a few on his legs and arms, one on his side. Minho shifts but remains asleep and Jonghyun covers his friend with the towel, a task he can easily do right then and there.  
  
Jonghyun stretches and now with a little amusement sees they are both nearly naked. How he could care less because he's occupied now with how everything is blurry as hell, everything beyond a few paces from him. He stands up and pulls at the cloth material at his crotch, pats his penis, intact. Where did he leave his clothing? He frowns and shakes his shoes out, water and sand having collected into them. He traces around the area, trying to recall paths they took yesterday but the recollections come up insubstantial, vapor-like.  Even the shore looks and feels different. It is wider than he remembers, not matching yesterday's gauge, and the expanse of granular sand is much bigger than before. He takes a drink from one of the collections of rain. It tastes awkward, almost bad with the scent of sea and hints of salt and not at all like the crisp taste of what he associates with water. He forces himself to drink more. Between him and the sea, there's debris littered about, loads of it. A shiver goes up his spine when it occurs that he might be looking at bodies, but ones he can't see.  
  
At the same time he recognizes his own dress shirt, gaudy pink and deep purple and the tank top next to it, both hanging from a branch. He thinks of Minho. How Minho is somewhere here, that Jonghyun is not alone. He makes his way over to the clothes, still damp, and shakes them off but doesn't put them on. Jonghyun curses himself as he tries to make his way back to Minho, takes in the vague shapes as best as he can. Dread begins to settle in his stomach as he walks slowly, toward where he guesses Minho is sleeping. He tests his voice, fails to make a sound and clears his throat. Spits, shields the view of his mouth from no one. A few beginning notes of a scale and he says, “Minho,” an inside voice.  
  
“Minho,” louder now. Jonghyun walks, not as fast as he usually would if knew his destination.  
  
He recognizes the trees, a certain pair where the trunks are in a curved shape, growing to the side then upward and out from underneath the shade of taller trees. “Minho,” Jonghyun shouts. Is the guy gonna hear him and respond, Jonghyun can't count on him in this instance. Sensations of dampness, vibrations of things crunching under his shoes, the still vapor of fog, the particular silence of still-morning nature, all persistent reminders of their removal from modern convenience. A sense of relief, small but tangible, disengages a pressure when he sees the bright yellow raft. Minho is still asleep on it, his brows no longer cinched in the middle ground between them, almost peaceful. Asleep, even after being battered at sea then washing ashore the day before.  
  
Jonghyun crouches down and touches Minho's hair.  
  
Minho frowns upon opening his eyes, rolls to his left, then to the right, looks up at Jonghyun, squeezes his eyes shut as he stretches and pops multiple joints at once. “Hyung.” Jonghyun traces the shape of Minho's torso and thinks about how they are both so thin, so unprepared for this slip. His eyes have a dull ache behind them and he presses the heel of his left palm into one eye, then the other. Minho sits up. Jonghyun yawns and sits on the raft, now totally deflated.  
  
The fog begins to disseminate with the arrival of wind.  
  
“Any thoughts on how we shall...” Jonghyun thinks about what could, should be said next. “Proceed from here? Other than finding something to eat. We need to find something to eat.”  
  
He can't see Minho's face, back turned toward Jonghyun. Minho is stretching his neck, twisting it this way and that. Jonghyun finds himself watching muscle working underneath skin, the long column of spine and protrusions of scapula that occasionally show as Minho tries to relieve the tension from sleeping on an irregular surface. Finally, after what feels like five whole minutes, Minho slouches and drops his head forward. The sky begins to color into a blue.  
  
“I'm hungry too.” A sigh. “I'm trying. To think of what people do in movies for this sort of situation.” Minho says with another sigh. “Kinda sad, huh?”  
  
Sunlight pierces through leaves and residual fog onto the both of them. Thick diffusion of vapor cast their own shadows. Jonghyun says, “we have to make a fire. Signal with the smoke.”  
  
Minho snaps his fingers and swings his head around to look back at Jonghyun. “Excellent.”  
  
But they couldn't figure out how to make a fire. Rub things together? No gas, no sparks to leap to life. Every thing is wet, so they move on.  
  
Before they set out to walk along the ocean, Minho scratches a line into a nearby tree trunk. They put on pants and slip their feet into shoes, their soles too tender to handle gravel and broken shells. They don't bother to fasten the laces or to put on shirts. They go barefoot after they reach the containers of rain, the ground flat and sand fine. Those first few hours they walk along the shoreline, perusing, the sea continually dropping back to create a much wider stretch of beach. Jonghyun pokes at everything they pass, the both of them alternately collecting and leaving debris along the way. Containers for water, light and dry wood,  clothes of which many were ill-fitting, silverware. People pack unexpected things and things they cannot identify. A half full lighter that barely sparks, which Minho pockets anyway. It would be nice to have one of Jinki's knives right now. They pass by other things that have washed ashore: shoes without their pair, a camera, clothing, a passport, a panel of pills in blister packaging, swollen books in a foreign languages, towels, ugly glasses, and frighteningly enough, a pacifier.  
  
Nothing that could reflect a large amount of light is found.  
  
Clouds finally dissipate into lesser beings and the sun is revealed to be at a high point in the sky. They have been walking, albeit slowly, along the shoreline for what didn't feel like it should be long enough to reach midday. The distance they walk is far enough that they cannot see the yellow raft at that point, and the shore ahead of them stretches and curves out of view. Like they are on an island. Not Madagascar, maybe. The sun and humidity drives them to return to the raft. Carefully, they rinse then fill the bottles with rain water. It is slightly salty, with rings on the sides indicative of evaporation. Jonghyun rinses while Minho fills because his hand is steadier. Each drop that slips away makes Minho visibly cringe. “Maybe it'll rain tonight, or tomorrow,” Jonghyun says gently. He doesn't watch the water and focuses on his own stomach, clenching and uncomfortable. It's not painful, not yet. He wonders vaguely if it is the water they are drinking, or nerves, or both.  
  
“Does your stomach kinda hurt?”  
  
Minho looks at Jonghyun with knit brows. “Sort of. Does yours? I think mine is from being so hungry, but it's just a guess.”  
  
They collect the water containers and travel beneath the shade of the trees to return to the raft. The piles of debris they collect remain out in the sun. The shade provides much relief, makes the humidity more bearable but still the smell of nature remains. Not exactly bad, though not pleasing. Damp leaves and rocks, animal waste, and of course, the sea. Their shoes are still wet and are left in the sun. Jonghyun squints into the blurry underbrush while Minho picks up a brown mass of fibers and holds it up in front of him. Jonghyun puts on his tank top.  
  
“I think this is a coconut.”  
  
Jonghyun is startled. It's like they're in a movie, the thought striking so hard he kind of hates himself. “Hey, I think you're right. They always are in that, like, chopped circular and pointed form in grocery stores. And so expensive.” Jonghyun can tell Minho is holding back a laugh, to which he smacks Minho's shoulder. “Hey, so I'm not exactly that great at words right now, OK. But I have an idea of how to see if—” Jonghyun thinks about how if it was dropped from up high it might crack, but then visualizes that the coconut water will immediately spill out, “—you're right! B-but maybe it's not such a great idea on second thought.”  
  
“Whatever, say it anyway,” Minho says while testing the solidity of the thing. “Does it sound hollow to you?” He asks while holding it near an ear and tapping it with a rock.  
  
Jonghyun shrugs. “I can't tell. So my thought was to drop it and see if it'll crack. Like from a tree.”  
  
“So you volunteer to climb one of these?” Minho asks.  
  
They look doubtfully at the trees. Most of them have limbs too high to even leap and try to dangle from, much less get a leg up onto one in order to climb it.  
  
“Maybe you can hug the trunk of a palm and wiggle your way up,” Jonghyun suggests. “Like a caterpillar. While you, you know, balance the coconut on your head. Like a beauty queen.”  
  
Minho begins to laugh but then he covers his face in a gesture of despair. “Hyung, the kind of shit that you think of. Though now it occurs to me that one of these things falling on our heads will pretty much kill you.”  
  
Jonghyun sits on the raft, falling silent with Minho who sits down next to him. “There's no palm trees around us right now, at least.” Minho holds up a coke bottle filled with water, extends it to Jonghyun. “Is your stomach still bothering you? You should have some water, you need some regardless.” Jonghyun accepts the bottle and holds it for a long moment before moving to slowly uncap it.  
  
“I could,” Minho stops short then grins, “Momma-bird it to you if you want, if it'd help.”  
  
Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “That alone might make me puke for real, and I have my own stomach acid, but thanks.” Jonghyun feels himself chuckle as he shakes his head.  
  
“Maybe you could use a transplant of stronger, better stomach acid.” Minho sticks his bottom lip out and downturns his lips, brows rising.  
  
“I'll ask my family physician about that when we get back,” Jonghyun says before he takes a single gulp of water. His stomach is still strange and grumbly, but it is inevitable that there should be discomfort when they must rely on germ-riddled rain water that more likely than not originated from, well, the sea. “How does your stomach not feel weird, I don't understand.” A sudden exhaustion overcomes Jonghyun and he moves to lay down.  
  
Minho shrugs and moves to lay down too. Jonghyun scoots over to give Minho room to pillow his head on the same life jacket. “My stomach was uncomfortable when I had the water yesterday, and a little bit from this morning too. But now it's other things, this entire bullshit situation that's—that's making me tired as shit and worrying my stomach. Or at least I think. Haven't gotten the shits, yet.”  
  
“Damn. I forgot about that possibility.” Jonghyun closes his eyes and he skims an imaginary horizon as their silent selves lie awake. “Are you hurt anywhere?” Jonghyun asks, even though he knows they have gone through this question. At least he thinks so. “I mean, cuts and or badly bruised or anything?”  
  
“No,” Minho says, looking over at Jonghyun. “You?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Minho's eyes close as Jonghyun's own are involuntarily fluttering open. The surrounding landscape shifts and hums around them: crest and crash of waves, bird calls, foliage being disturbed. It is nice, in a way, but the situation is scary in another. A way that makes Minho curse more than usual, a way that has not quite registered into reality yet for Jonghyun. Two human beings thrown out of their modern realm. Well, sort of, since they are not literally thrown into another time nor onto another planet.  
  
Minho speaks up.  
  
“We're lucky that somehow, we washed up here without getting cut and bleeding. I walked for a while after I woke up. I was by myself. For a long stretch I didn't find anyone else on the shore.” A bird pauses its squawking. “Not even bodies,” and starts up again. Jonghyun studies Minho's face as he speaks, the corners of his eyes crinkling even when shut, concentrating, and reminding him of Kibum and his insistence on the necessity of eye cream. “But I haven't walked through the entire beach of course. I didn't feel like I could leave you," Minho pauses a moment, "since you were still alive and there wasn't anyone else I'd found anyway. I'm glad I stayed, especially because today we still haven't found anyone else.”  
  
“What's lucky is that we're in this together,” Jonghyun says. “At least. I can't imagine trying to communicate and get along with a foreigner, not sharing a language.” Jonghyun stops, not sure what to say next. “I still can't believe this happened.”  
  
“Yeah. It's fucked up. Freak accident. Something, some shit.” Minho says, almost a whisper.  
  
The natural chaos playing around them does not scare Jonghyun, nor comfort him either. Jonghyun listens to the constant sound of Minho's breath evening out into sleep. A continual reminder of time's passing. He is pulled out of his reverie, however, by the smell of smoke. Adrenaline coursing, Jonghyun sits up to see that, in the distance near where they used to have their reservoirs of rain water set up but now removed, the pile of wood that they had both thrown together earlier that day is now smoldering. He carefully stands up and makes his way over to investigate. The sand reflects sunlight seemingly in whole, briefly blinding him. He crouches down near the source of the smoke, about to be extinguished. Near the dry wood he sees that one of the bottles of water they filled up earlier that day is still here, forgotten, now warm to the touch. Did the bottle act as a magnifier for the sunlight to kindle the driftwood? Jonghyun plucks a stick from the pile to place beneath the point of light that passed through the bottle. To his surprise, it begins to smoke, though no visible fire. With fascination of the incidental discovery, Jonghyun attempts twice more to ignite a stick with magnification, but he is unable to get an actual fire going.  
  
At least he knows now, he thinks as he makes his way back to Minho, still asleep. Now curled on his side, Jonghyun could not help but smile at Minho's slack, open mouth. Poor guy is so tired. The water bottle in one hand and a stick in the other, still wafting the smell of smoke, this discovery helps to release some tension in his body and stomach too. Jonghyun takes a gulp of the warm water, tinged with the sea. Maybe they'll yet be found and rescued. He lies down next to Minho and forcibly shuts his eyes, tries to relax his body into the lull of much needed slumber.  
  
It is afternoon when they wake up. The air is still hot. To Jonghyun's surprise, Minho is awake before him, shaking off the clothes that were hung and now miraculously dry. In a daze, he watches Minho fold them into neat squares. Their stomachs growl and he tells Minho about his discovery, works a 'flaming charisma' into the story and earning himself a smile. Minho puts his hand beneath the magnification of light through a bottle, testing the heat. Though it is hot, it doesn't light anything on fire, to much of Minho's chagrin. It will have to wait. They start another exploration with a walk down the other end of the beach, opposite the direction they took that morning, toward the same one they washed upon. There are tide pools on the rocky portion, near the cliff faces, and Minho suggests that maybe they could do something with the tiny crabs, already devising ways to find bigger crabs. Jonghyun adds that they have to maybe stay up late to catch them. At least that's what his parents did, taking late trips out to harbors, measuring the shells of the catch by moonlight and flashlight. The sand is finer when they walk out towards the ocean, but there are still depressions of sand where sharp, iridescent shell fragments collect. Wading in till the water was sloshing at knee height, small fish glance at their ankles.  
  
“Let's try to make something to catch fish,” Minho says. “Maybe a net, if we could somehow manage that. Or a spear. Something.”  
  
“Got the skills to stab at a fish that quickly?” Jonghyun says with a grin. “I think I'd get my own toe.” Jonghyun looks towards land, up the slope thick with vegetation. “Hopefully we can find some sort of wood in there to make something that will catch us fish.”  
  
Minho too looks up in the same direction. “We should go in there while it's still light out,” he suggests. “Explore a bit before the sun sets. And maybe we can find some sort of fruit to keep us from actual starvation.” The word 'starvation' strikes deeply. The awareness of their exhaustion, the salt and the dirt on their bodies, crude smells enveloping the entire scene, are acute to Jonghyun's senses exactly then and there. He sees in Minho's body and expression grim lines, of his eyes and the muscles in his jaws and the upright line of his posture, that the will to survive is strong. Survival instinct that can propel the both of them out with sheer force. If they are going down, it will not be without a hard fight.  
  
Jonghyun nods. “I think that's a good idea. Though... I don't want to get eaten by a bear or a tiger or a gila monster or something. Or watch you get mauled.”  
  
“I'll protect you, hyung,” Minho says with his best shit-eating grin and a cool, lopsided shrug. “Day, night, doesn't matter.”  
  
Jonghyun smiles and rubs his neck. “Aw, I should be protecting my dongsaeng. Anyway, let's go explore, then.”  
  
It takes a couple hours, but after perusal of trees and checking the ground for rotting fruit, to much of their delight they find mangoes, bananas, figs, and even a palm with green coconuts. They eat what the birds find safe and fruit that smells too sweet and looks too familiar for them to put up a solid, cautionary resistance. Carrying fruit to a nearby stream they had passed earlier, one that Jonghyun has the sense to note and later able to lead them back to it, they rinse the fruit, their hands too, and carefully check for insects before each bite, a process that isn't quick enough for their agonized stomachs. To much of his horror Jonghyun is the first to discover, almost causing him to drop the mess into his lap, that a fig sometimes already has a swirling mess of occupants incubating inside. Minho laughs at him, entire body shaking, and picks apart figs himself, throws away whatever part has larvae, eats the rest. Jonghyun watches Minho swallow with a contortion of face that he as probably never made before. Minho insists on sharing with Jonghyun, passing fragrant, sticky, and oozing masses into the his fingers only to end up dumping them onto his palm. For the last few bites, Minho drops bits of figs into his mouth. Jonghyun shakes his head when Minho says that he just felt himself swallowing some larvae. Then Minho licks his own hand, jolly still with laughter.  
  
By the time they are through the figs and the few mangoes that are ripe enough to eat, they notice that the sky is cloudy again, quickly deepening into a dark gray. They devour most of their haul, which isn't much since they didn't have a bag or containers, but kept the few shiny, unmarred mangoes found in hopes that they will be able to eat them later.  
  
“Crap, we should have washed our clothes in the stream first and had them dry, but it looks like we're gonna get rained on anyway,” Jonghyun says. “Wet and still salty.”  
  
“I think you can at least lead us back to the beach.” They haven't seen or heard any large animals, though still it would be nice to be in a more familiar and open space. “But hold on,” Minho says as he hoists himself up a young, spindly tree.  
  
Jonghyun sputters. “What are you doing, get down here! What if you fall?!”  
  
Minho situates himself on the branches of the tree in order to put his foot on a thin branch, purposely breaking it and catching his weight on his other foot as he lands on the floor.  The landing looks easy, and Minho breaks off the twigs and leaves for only the branch. “But now I have a big stick to protect us!”  
  
Jonghyun rolls his eyes as he pulls up the hem of his shirt and piles the mangoes in the makeshift cradle. “Let's go.”  
  
It turns out to be harsh rainfall for what seems like at least two hours. They run from beneath one tree to another but despite their efforts are eventually are soaked through-and-through.  Jonghyun thinks the rain could barely be considered rain, more like water pouring the ocean itself down from the sky.  
  
He leads them back to the sea by simply following the run-off streams.  The idea is not totally reliable, but it takes them to shore.  
  
“This isn't the beach we woke up on, though,” Jonghyun says as he blinks furiously, trying to see what other land formations were visible from that point.  
  
“Doesn't matter much to me,” Minho replies, busy wringing out his shirt, soaking it, and then wringing it out again as he toes off his sneakers. “I just wanna feel clean again. Though I don't want to get sick either.”  He hangs his shirt on the diagonal trunk of a nearby palm, covered with a giant beard of dead leaves.  
  
Jonghyun follows suit, goes further. As he is taking off his boxer briefs, nearby, Minho yelps. “Going all the way!” Jonghyun laughs.  
  
Minho turns his back on Jonghyun after making a strangled noise. Jonghyun stares at Minho all while he waggles his eyebrows until the other finally gives in and glances at him.  Minho whips his eyes away from Jonghyun. And he can't help but laugh at their naked asses in the rain, wringing out and probably ruining the fabric of the clothes.  
  
“Just clean yourself while you can!”  
  
After the rain, they find a tree to help shelter them. They shake as much water off the leaves as they could and are also pelted with some small, spherical and delicious yellow fruit. Jonghyun's stomach is no longer bothering him. They spend the evening lying on top of and beneath banana leaves. The clouds finally clear for setting the sun to shine through, casting its rays almost perfectly horizontal towards them, enough to warm them but not to dry anything.  
  
Upon waking up next to each other on the second and third day, a semblance of a routine begins. A loose order of drinking water, making a smoke signal, collecting dew from rain and leaves, searching for other survivors, searching for food, and picking through more washed up debris. As the days progress, the search for other survivors gets postponed later and later in the priority of their tasks. The days fill with work: gathering material to burn, debris that can still have a use, tidying spaces beneath trees, gathering water and fruit. Napping, sleeping. Eating fruit, bitching about the lack of protein. “Now I'm just a machine converting fruit into farts.” Talking, wondering about what lies beyond the horizon of sea-sky.  
  
“Did you know that we, as human beings, have more information about space than we do about what goes on underneath the surface of these waters?” At first, Jonghyun doesn't understand what Minho is trying to say. “Literally. As in, if we piled facts about space and had a separate pile for facts about the ocean, the pile about space would be hell of a fuckton bigger.”  
  
Jonghyun doesn't believe it. “It annoys me that I can't even look this up.” Minho puts on a smug expression to annoy him.  
  
“I heard that after the quake and tsunami that hit northern Japan, months later, stuff washed up on the shore of North America. Stuff like detached docks and even— even inexplicable things like motorcycles.”  
  
They are watching their fifth sunset. Jonghyun and Minho manage to find a cliff of sorts and settle there for the afternoon, tossing anything from green coconuts to rocks to fruit bits and seeds into the restless sea. They now have a knife, found in a small suitcase, and Jonghyun is peeling and slicing while Minho sits and chucks everything within their vicinity toward the sea as he talks. It is very windy and cool, for which they are both thankful.  
  
“It's right here with us, this water, covering most of this planet. And yet, how does something as dense as a hunk of metal not sink right to the bottom of the ocean to join the squids and ugly, transparent fish? And apparently a dead whale could sink and not even hit the bottom. Its entire body is consumed by other animals.  
  
“Carcass of a whale, not reaching the bottom of the ocean is something I can imagine. But it's weird still, with the bones and all. So in some ways, I can't believe it. But it's different, when it comes to the motorcycle. Unbelievable. Can a current be strong enough to do such things, carry a heavy chunk of metal thousands of kilometers away? Did that earthquake roll the ocean so hard that, OK, horrifying tsunami, but it also churned the ocean itself, maybe so hard and unforgiving too for whatever was at the bottom of these oceans? Maybe now, molecules of water that spent most of its time in Japan and Korea are now in Mexico?”  
  
“How bewildered the H2O must be,” Jonghyun says while stuffing Minho's mouth with a slice of mango. “I get what you mean, though. It's weird. A motorcycle, huh.” Jonghyun wants to look this up, the urge a strong itch. “It's a total, awful destruction that ruined whatever neatness, because you know we're messy, the little neatness that humanity ever had in the first place. It's all misaligned, mangled. It's hard for me to imagine how anything ever manages to work out and be, I don't know. Successful.  
  
“It amazes me too that fruit comes out whole and sometimes, often times! Remains undisturbed or disturbed perfectly enough to reproduce.” Minho turns to Jonghyun to show him the food in his mouth, all masticated and Jonghyun wrinkles his nose. “And when things align for stuff like, SHINee and our overseas popularity to happen.”  
  
Minho offers a chunk of persimmon to Jonghyun, opens his mouth and Minho pops it in. “And how we're not dead.”  
  
A week passes after their arrival and they have not found other survivors. According to their estimates, it's Tuesday, or thereabouts. “Looks like we're roommates again,” Jonghyun quips. Minho chuckles as he clears rocks away from yet another chosen spot to make a shelter from at least morning dew, if not the rain. They haven't had a chance to walk the entire length of the beach, so they are still not sure if they are on a remote island or somewhere on Madagascar. It's looking less and less likely that they will be able to find other people. On the following day they go into the forest; Minho notes the density of the shrubbery, the lack of trails, dearth of artificial and clearly human-origin litter. Like plastic.  
  
Jonghyun is stripping leaves from palms, making simple checkered weaves to thatch together a roof or some sort, maybe with mud paste to act as glue. They are still not sure about the specifics of the roof composition and structure, but they are going to try. The rain is intermittent, falling less and less in the past couple days. And the smoke signal, now burning day and night, for as long as they can manage to juggle it along with their other chores and sleep, has yet to catch the attention of any rescue team as far as they can tell. Yesterday: somber with a sense of futility, as the two of them work to feed the fire through an afternoon drizzle until Jonghyun finds a sealed bag of wafers while on a brief jog down the beach. A purple bag that somehow floated its way over to them, lodging itself behind a rock. Its contents are wafers, still crisp with strange-fruity-pleasant purple mousse, a welcome distraction for the both of them as they watch the fire burn and snack on the tiny, bite-sized sweets. Each bite is slowly consumed, and together they finish the bag by the time the sun fully sets. Jonghyun folds the bag flat and puts it beneath a rock.  
  
Upon the eighth day, Jonghyun awakes from a fitful sleep. It is his first night of poor slumber on the island. That day before apparently hadn't contained enough exhaustion from clearing rocks, collecting wood and leaves, organizing and cleaning debris, collecting water and fruit and fish. That night, he dreams and remembers it even upon waking up. He dreams that they finally managed to crack coconuts from throwing it off a certain cliff, drinking the cool, clear water held inside. While it was nice and kind of funny, it is a show of the simple desire for water that drives stress and exhaustion harder into his mind, into his bones. Water from a coconut, not sea-scented or flavored. Jonghyun licks his lips. The weather clears up into mostly steady, hot sun. A couple times, a cool afternoon shower with distant thunder. But nothing they couldn't handle.    
  
The heights they manage to climb never seem high enough to crack any coconut thus far. Jonghyun wants to tell Minho about his dream and idea to use a cliff, but he forgets. Minho returns disheveled, his clothes have bits of bark and sap and some is in his hair. Minho is still using that stick he broke off a young tree that first day. Jonghyun wonders if it helps Minho to fancy himself a sort of adventurer, if it helps him to be so upbeat. But he'll take that stick away from Minho if it means that'll keep the guy from getting himself into harm's way.  
  
“I told you to not climb any more trees,” Jonghyun says.  Minho groans as he stretches, pulling his limbs this way and that.  
  
“It's not because I climbed a tree though.” Minho begins to settle into a lunge stretch and promptly topples over.  He rolls onto his belly and buries his nose into the crook of his elbow.  
  
Jonghyun sees it happen from the corner of his eye and doesn't say anything until he realizes he can hear Minho taking measured breaths through his nose. “Are you alright?” Jonghyun approaches his friend's body and settles a haul of fruit next to him.  
  
“I think I pulled something,” comes Minho's muffled reply. "Clearing some trails. I swear some of them grow back overnight."  
  
“Oh geez, you really should not overexert yourself. It's not like either of us are injured. No need to be hellbent on survival.  We've been here for a week. We still might be found soon enough.” Jonghyun has to suppress his amusement in this voice and smile from showing through though Minho wasn't even looking at his face. “Alright. Tell me where it is.”  
  
“It's the right leg,” Minho says.  
  
Jonghyun rubs his hands together. “The foot? Calf? Thigh?”  
  
“Thigh.”  
  
Jonghyun sets to work, kneading muscle with what he guesses should be enough strength. “Is it helping? I don't know what I'm doing, you know.” He pushes down with the heel of his palms.  
  
“Go higher,” Minho says. He exhales noisily, profile facing out to the side.  “Thanks, by the way.”  
  
Jonghyun makes a sound of affirmation, works his way up and raises his eyebrows. He carefully presses into the muscle for a few long minutes. “I think we know the area well enough now that we can consider exploring more, up into the forest. Then we can maybe figure out if there are other people around.”  
  
“I agree,” Minho replies. “Higher, please.”  
  
“Higher?” Jonghyun slides further, and away from the inside of Minho's leg. His eyebrows rise to their extent.  
  
“Higher!” Minho says.  
  
“I'm massaging your ass!” Jonghyun goes all out, puts his elbows out to push down into Minho's butt just as Minho laughs uproariously and releases a loud fart, startling Jonghyun into falling backwards onto his own ass.  He scurries backward, away from Minho. “I can't— you just—!” Jonghyun hadn't gotten a whiff, but he makes an exaggerated gag. Minho curls up in laughter.  
  
The next morning, Minho rolls over instead of waking up with Jonghyun. Not even with poking and prodding would he rise, though he does sit up when Jonghyun is taking a drink of water, but promptly drops back to the ground to continue sleeping after several gulps. Perhaps yesterday he really did hurt himself. Hopefully not in a way that either of them couldn't handle, which is likely enough that Jonghyun can set it aside.  
  
“Suit yourself,” Jonghyun lays on as much pout and grumble as he can. The only response he gets is a wiggle from Minho's form from beneath a pile of jackets and banana leaves.  
  
It is windy on the beach that morning, not hot and not cold. The novelty of the sea and beach have yet to wear itself on Jonghyun. There's a low lying smell to the sea, but it still is beautiful and defining. Salt in the air, covering his skin and hair, molecules hanging momentarily to his body and changing him just as he ever so slightly changes the sands and displaces the trajectory of oncoming winds. He takes up an undeniable space that the sea gracefully grants him. He's getting thinner than he'd like to be—the both of them are, Jonghyun and Minho. The sight of scuffs and scabs on Minho. Jonghyun's own piercings, which close up, line with pus but are now healing. His stomach, grudgingly processing food. But they're still here, still alive.  
  
Jonghyun remains stationary, anticipating the power of the cresting waves to eventually reach him. Each of the waves crash on the shore in a lumpy semi-circle of foam. He thinks of the edges of a frying egg, of the trail of a wedding dress, of a sound's frequencies. His stomach growls but it doesn't register with him, not as sea water surges over his feet, bringing with it sand and chills and the beckoning of tears. Even if he screams out loud, which would only serve to startle Minho if he heard it, no one can hear him. Not the people who need to hear him. Neither of them, no matter how much smoke and light they send into the air, the few reflective things they have found, the noise that any of them could make, none of it can make enough of a disturbance. To send a message of existence, of not-death. He cannot imagine what his family and their fans must feel, from the moment they are told of the news and how they feel now. His sister is probably told the news while still at work.  
  
Enough. Jonghyun shuffles his feet deeper into the sand as he thinks about the side-ways style walk of the crab while he wipes at the trail of the few teardrops. He rinses his feet of sand as much as possible before making his way inland.  
  
Jonghyun is startled by the appearance of a big pile of poop. Quickly, he steps away and vigilantly watches the placement of each of his following footfalls, that he not step on anything but ground, whether it be a poor slug or more shit or something or other. Has he been there? To that spot? Took a shit and doesn't remember it? He cannot recall exactly what it looks like and is reluctant to go back, to examine. Could it be Minho's? It may very well have been human sized. Jonghyun walks away to harvest foliage from another tree. He remembers the time he found a giant log of crap in the yard of his parent's house. His bewilderment, pretty sure that no matter how much his imagination stretches any circumstances of their tiny family dog, there's no way she'd be able to crap a log the size of her head. He'd alerted his mother to it, who told him it must be from her sister's dog, a border collie, who came with his aunt the previous day to visit. People should really pick up after their dogs and not give others a shock.  
  
It might be too much to ask, but he hopes he doesn't discover a probable pile of human poop ever again. He makes note to talk to Minho about making an agreement, spaces where they are to relieve themselves. Jonghyun laughs in a bit of horror at the possibility that they are sharing an island with giant creatures, carnivores of some sort that will come attack him and Minho in their sleep and turn them into one of those piles of shit.  
  
Their schedule for today is, as Minho put it yesterday, give the fuck up on a continual smoke signal and gather as much information as they can about this place. In his mind Jonghyun says, 'this piece of rock' they're on. Before sunset, he had gone off on his own for a short while but Minho didn't discover much apart from tangles of growth and multiple steep hills. What do they know about Madagascar? It is a huge 'island' with animals and bugs of which many are found nowhere else on Earth. Sodam had him to look up hissing cockroaches, which were kind of cool in their own way. Cockroaches that hissed through little holes in their exoskeleton. Before their trip Jonghyun showed Minho an informative clip about them and all he had to say was, “would you eat one, fried?” To which Jonghyun did not have chance to respond fully because he wanted answer without denying the possibility. Now, though, he will gladly try a fried bug. It is at least a kind of protein.  
  
Jonghyun startles Minho awake by shouting about how he is making everyone late. Minho grumbles as he shakes off the dredges of sleep, moving slowly.  
  
“C'mon, let's go explore, Survivalist Action Hero Choi Minho. Look at you, how can you let anyone see you like this? Sloth-like, though you're not nearly as cute as they are.”  
  
Minho squints at Jonghyun and at the last moment doesn't dignify the jab with a response. “I was gonna ask about the time but I suppose that you wouldn't really know it, nor does it matter. I wonder how much sleep I got. I'm still so fucking tired.”  
  
Minho gets a fire going while Jonghyun heaps the fuel. The sun is seemingly in the center of the sky, though based on the placement of the rising sun, if they are on an island they are on the north side. In Jonghyun's head, for over a week, he's been calling this place an island. Minho hasn't called it an island aloud, which Jonghyun finds hopeful, despite the evidence they've come across thus far.  
  
Jonghyun listens to Minho's report of intelligence: there is a small mangrove forest of sorts to the right, if he remembers the tree correctly based on its ability to grow and settle in salty waters; the hill beyond it is really steep with what sounds like a waterfall beyond it, and it is about a thirty, maybe thirty-five minute walk away from their base. Intermittent reminders of 'Watch for poisonous leaves,' 'Carefully step on even as possible surfaces,' 'Avoid puddles,' 'Don't let bugs drop down your clothes.'  
  
“Do you think we're on an island, Minho? Not Madagascar.”  
  
Minho shrugs. “I hope we are, on Madagascar I mean. But it's not looking too likely.” They walk a few more paces and Minho says, “It seems like this place could be infinitely huge. But I'd probably feel differently if there were roads and we had a car, could cross the island in the matter of hours.”  
  
That day, they watch critters crawl the floor of a small, clear river. On the undersides of the leaves they find salt crystals, credit for the discovery goes to Minho who licks it as Jonghyun flinches at his lack of hesitation. They discover a pineapple plant, that to their surprise pineapples didn't grow on trees nor underground, which in hindsight both make no sense anyway. They follow the sound of the waterfall and to their delight find it; rushing water and cool, misted air a welcome relief from the salty humidity of the beach. They crawl into the rushing stream, careful that they do not get carried away by the water, which is fast but shallow in most parts, cool, and mercifully so low on salt as to be undetectable. The point where the water itself touches down from the fall is unreachable, for now. They dare take only a couple gulps to wash down the poorly carved but much appreciated bits of pineapple. Jonghyun notices a tree with peeling bark that smells so similarly to peppermint, and takes a branch with him. They test any reactivity from the leaves by rubbing a leaf on their arms, to which there is no reaction. Jonghyun drops a trail of its leaves as they walk, enjoying its scent.  
  
“How are you feeling?” Minho asks as they are making their way uphill, zig-zaging their way around trees, fallen logs, steeper slopes, and rocks.  
  
“Hm?” Jonghyun is taken aback, not sure if Minho is being merely polite. “Oh, you mean my stomach? Yeah, it's fine, thankfully it doesn't hurt. How are you?”  
  
“Hungry.” Jonghyun finds himself stifling a laugh. “But that waterfall is so beautiful. I'm happy it exists here.”  
  
The waterfall takes an edge off of their worries and concerns. Somehow, the presence of cool, crisp waters, just its presence and reality, being the most hospitable thing they've come across so far is so exceedingly nice. Such pure appreciation in Minho's voice and demeanor of relaxed shoulders, wet hair, and clear complexion, free of the dry skin they've been battling since their arrival. For a while, at least. But, food. Hunger.  
  
“Ugh, don't remind me. My stomach is enough of a reminder. Though if I could re-live something forever, over and over again, it would be eating that damn pineapple, and bathing naked in that waterfall.”  
  
“You were naked,” Minho's laughter is incredulous.  
  
“You need to be more observant,” Jonghyun winks. To which Minho rolls his eyes.  
  
That night, Jonghyun and Minho decide to not return to the beach and instead settle beneath a tree. Together they roll about in reminiscence for hot showers, light fixtures, fresh steaming rice, and girls. They don't miss cell phones and they definitely don't miss timepieces, with their incessant ticking or stark digital numbers, the need to constantly mind each second. They do miss little things, like hair conditioner and nail clippers, but they've since forgiven the appearance of their roots and accept their chipping, uneven nails. They don't miss the specter of eyeballs, the need to consciously scan for all routes of escape, instinct constantly on when they're outside the headquarters or the apartment. Without a doubt, stage lights, fan chants, and pure adrenaline are crystal clear circumstances that they know, can recall on command.  
  
“You know, the fans are probably upset as fuck. Maybe even grieving.” Minho throws the thought out like a stone and it skips over the water, the ripples colliding and jostling for even more space in Jonghyun's brain.  
  
Jonghyun shakes his head. “I can't even think of what fans are doing now. We went missing in the ocean. It's too weird, too inconceivable.” He recalls the faces of the girls, some of them women, he must pass when entering the SM building, recent messages on SHINee's official and fan-run boards that he's read, the fansite photographers. The discussions that must be going on behind closed doors at the upper levels of management. Jonghyun's heart beats even faster and his throat tightens. “And our families.”  
  
The next morning is surprisingly cold, the both of them waking up with their arms wrapped around each other. It's less noisy than a beach morning, the quiet composed of thin whispers of bugs and leaves. Jonghyun takes his time waking up. He watches Minho with an appreciative delight, his drifting out of consciousness, then in again and he huddles deeper into their collective warmth. His hair looks soft and clean, split ends fuzzy in the light. Jonghyun thinks he knows the time he last cuddled with someone that wasn't Roo, but he can't be sure. His mental time line has been screwed up ever since debut. The memory of floral scented shampoo and hot, well-insulating goose down comforter is impossible to forget, engraved into his mind. Jonghyun shrugs off the memory, having rifled through it countless times. Mint and lazy bones of a beautiful and exhausted boy —no — man, are worth celebrating too. Jonghyun doubts he'd ever have this experience with Minho without at least one of them being drunk. Which is a little bit sad if he thought more about it.  
  
Minho stretches without opening his eyes, his hairy arms and legs sliding variously up and down Jonghyun's own limbs.    
  
“Ready for a whole new day?” Minho asks as he cracks seemingly every joint in his body.  
  
That day, they reach the top. At that vantage point, they can see the endless horizon and the water which surrounds their entire island. It is not small. But in the grand scheme of things, it's likely not even worth a footnote on an atlas, ones that are for the general public with little concern for physical accuracy. Minho let out a low whistle while they turn in a slow circle to take in the view. There is a clearing nearby, where Minho climbs a tree to get a better view and Jonghyun wonders aloud if this used to be a volcano, one that's sinking into the sea. There is only one other small island in the distance, smaller than their own island.  
  
He doesn't tell Minho to not climb the tree, hardly realizes his friend is up there. The view of birds and sandbars in the distance, the true blues and various greens are beautiful. Even still, Jonghyun feels a sense of thorough defeat, the view before them a reminder of the limits of a single human body.  Jonghyun makes himself lie down in the grass, at once familiar and overgrown.  
  
“What now?” Minho is the first to say something about moving forward. And to what?  
  
“That's a good question. I don't know. I'm hungry. And I don't know if I know anything else right now.” Jonghyun feels physically lighter than he's ever felt in a long time, and now it is knowledge weighing him down. Minho appears in his field of vision, sits down and carefully, softly cards his fingers through Jonghyun's hair.  
  
Sleep becomes an elusive and unkind process once again. Out of the limbo between sleep and wakefulness come the strange creations and monsters of Jonghyun's mind. He watches, immobilized, as a lone person walks out into a still lake. Sometimes they look behind themselves, back toward shore, at Jonghyun. An undetailed face. Music and voices he recognizes but cannot place, play and speak of their own volition. Often, Jonghyun is wandering around his favorite parts of Seoul and finds himself following a pale, white-haired woman that only he can see. In her most recent appearance, she leads him to a bar that has old recordings from many places and in many languages, the first bar that he had been sneaked through by his first serious girlfriend. He'd never been there a second time, though he had many opportunities to return. He wanders outside and the city lights turn into gray scale.  
  
Even with the natural beauty surrounding them and the absence of pressures that came with their normal lives, Jonghyun finds it damn near impossible to relax. They stop wondering if a bugs will be crawling up into their noses and ears at night. The largest monsters they encounter are lumbering crabs, shy tarantulas, and sunbathing scorpions. Minho manages to catch a few birds, the both of them catch fish that are caught in tidepools. On those days, when they go to sleep on a full stomach, it is easier to stay asleep although not a guarantee. The night has its share of intrusive noise, more than enough to keep Jonghyun awake once he is roused. Minho rarely has trouble staying asleep. But one night, when he did, the two of them walk through the dark forest into the clearing at the top of the island, easily with the guidance of bright moonlight. The band of the Milky Way galaxy a bright streak across the sky. Even with the shiny space blankets they found washed up on the beach, one for each of them, Jonghyun is chilled and humbled by the distance, the lights that have the sole purpose of traveling. Light being seen and received by hundreds of thousands of eyes on this planet, all at once. Minho puts an arm around him and Jonghyun turns into his friend's embrace.  
  
“Is the big bad sky getting you down?” Minho asks as he wraps his own shiny space blanket around Jonghyun. “But really, now.”  
  
Involuntarily, Jonghyun looks down. He had not shed tears in little over two weeks and now Minho's crooked question is tugging on his heart.  
  
Minho squeezes Jonghyun's shoulders and says, “I'm thinking about aliens. Today, I saw an octopus in the same tide pool, and I think it's the same one I've seen twice before. At the Western part of the island. It was changing colors and drifting here and there beneath the rocks. It's such a weird animal, with its weird beady eyes and weirdo sucker legs. I tried to touch it but it shot jets of water at my hand, which startled the hell out of me. I didn't know they did that. So I watched it for a while as it stealthily caught fish, and tried to remember the things I learned about octopus. They have eight legs and they have a beak. Beaks reminded me of birds, so I thought about manta rays. Their giant bodies like wings. I have trouble recalling what they look like, apart from that they're dark gray, white underbellies, and flat with gills.  
  
“Yeah, you know what I mean. Weird sea things. But if we have this stuff on earth, why even bother trying to look for aliens in outer space when we have them right here, under water? I know I keep saying 'weird' but it's the perfect word to describe these water animals.”  
  
Jonghyun giggles until he can't hold it in anymore and bursts into laughter. Minho's hand is in Jonghyun's hair at the nape of his neck.  
  
“I'm sorry, I just—” and as Jonghyun looks at Minho, his expression wide open and amusingly inquisitive, he bursts out into laughter again.  
  
“You look like you're possessed,” Minho says, the words tumble out in a rush.  
  
Jonghyun puts on an offended front, or tries to.  
  
“Your eyes were huge and black, I was—” Minho takes his hand away from Jonghyun's neck. He looks away from Jonghyun and rubs at his forehead.  
  
“You were what?” Jonghyun wants to know, and feels as though he's missed something he should really know, should be able to figure out.  
  
“It's nothing,” Minho says. “It's aliens, coming to abduct us.”  
  
Jonghyun can't help but smile at Minho's nonsense. “I think I'll opt to stay here.” With Minho.  
  
When Jonghyun wakes up next to Minho the following morning in the clearing, he finds that he's not as tired as he had been in the last few days. As though a burden is lifted off him, and one of his favorite songs that came out in high school is playing in his head. Remembering the cassette player during those days, second hand from his sister. The hiccups and imperfections in timing when recording over older songs, non-transitions that had etched themselves into his brain, reflexively expecting to hear a certain song after this current one that's playing in his head. He kept those imperfect tapes for his own use. Exchanging mixtapes with those old bandmates, spending hours painstakingly making more with carefully curated and ordered songs. Plucking songs off the radio, the excitement of hearing new music premier over the airwaves. Hopefully they're living a new life, recycled.  
  
Jonghyun walks to the edge of the clearing that he has yet to see up close. Its edge is curiously straight, almost perfectly so. He places his feet right at the edge, with all of his toes hanging off, and makes wildly exaggerated movements, then bends his knees and crouches down. But not before he hears Minho holler his name.  
  
“Are you alright?!”  
  
Jonghyun lost some balance but isn't close to falling. He feels bad and had no anticipation of Minho catching him looking like an idiot, flailing.  “Yeah, sorry! Just messing around.” Jonghyun's reply is loud, a hobbling attempt to get Minho to not run towards him.  
  
Minho looks over the edge as soon as he gets there. “Oh, it's not too bad. The drop probably isn't even as tall as you.”  
  
Jonghyun sticks his tongue out at Minho, who does not turn to see it.  
  
“Holy shit,” Minho says suddenly, and lays himself prone on the surface. He crooks a finger, motioning for Jonghyun to join him.  
  
“What?” When Jonghyun waits for an explanation and it doesn't come, Minho looks up at him.  
  
“Hyung, you really need to see this.”  
  
What the hell encouraged such intrigue? Jonghyun gets down on his belly and hangs his head down with Minho.  
  
Minho's voice is strained from lack of breath. “Do you see what I see?” Beneath the ground they are on is a hollow space with a stone floor, barely visible beneath the luscious flora that has built up over time, its pattern still apparent. Minho gets up and begins searching the area. “It's either people, or octopi, or aliens that built this.” Jonghyun watches Minho climb down and buzz about. The clearing is quite flat in itself, too. Grassy, albeit overgrown with rough tufts all over. That's kind of weird, isn't it? Minho discovers a series of stairs, overgrown with trees and vines, but it's there, very much real. Jonghyun sits on the straight edge of the clearing and lets his legs dangle downward, looks behind him. A clearing at the highest point of the island? Not a coincidence. The rising sun is warm along with the morning air's chill, a sensation of newness that helps dispel yesterday's ill feelings.  
  
The first thing Jonghyun does inside that structure is scratch the number of days they've been on the island, into the eastern-ish wall, near the outside. The tally is nearly at thirty days. To the place, they bring mats of leaves they've woven, fruit, things to accommodate sleeping, water. Clearing the floor of the place takes a large chunk of the day and their energy, revealing cool and damp stone beneath. He thinks to himself while watching Minho make a bed for the two of them, that this is the fourth shelter they have around the island. More like the only shelter, being that the other ones are spots cleared to sleep and make a fire, with no true cover from rain nor bird shit. Minho's waving him over to join and inside his body, he is detecting a weird sort of happiness. Jonghyun feels like he should feel awkward about all this, but it's not. Him laying around in boxers with his friend and bandmate, both of them unshaven and spending most of their time walking, eating and trying to find water; this is their new normal.  
  
Something else is tickling the back of Jonghyun's brain. Minho's eyes are closed when he settles down next to him, on top of the blanket. Jonghyun wants to recount with him the little spaces they both so far have established together on the island, but it could wait. It's their siesta, and true to Jonghyun's annoying body, he finds himself more awake than asleep. They had shared a large shiny fish that day too, with greens and their first time roasting kelp, of which they could only bring themselves to finish three extremely chewy bites. Jonghyun is hit with a hankering to cook up strange foods, which he used to do at odd times of the night with Taemin, the condiment cabinet filled with the strangest bottles and there's always a new bottle of unknown concoction there every time he opens it.  
  
They learn the hard way, with dizziness and both of them suffering a bout of coughing, that a fire should only be established at the entrance, and even then more outside than close to them. Within a few days, they get used to the spiders that have built their webs up near the ceiling. Jonghyun neatly folds the clothes they were wearing when they'd washed up on the island and leaves them in the corner, away from the elements. During the day, it is cool inside and more often than not, the nights inside are cooler there than if they were sleeping outside. On occasion, they must sleep close together, huddling for combined heat, the most prominent sound being that of each other's breath over the distant hum of night creatures. On rainy and cool days, they put round river stones into the fire and while still hot, roll them into the back of their sleeping space.  
  
Minho develops a real circadian rhythm. He wakes up with the dawn and is visibly tired after sunset. Jonghyun envies the predictably, of which his own body still does not abide. They begin spending extended amounts of time apart, hot afternoons where Jonghyun wanders alone. He finds himself collecting dry matter, maintaining the trails, visiting the shores. There is a certain tree that has perfect branches for climbing with a place to perch and watch gulls ride gusts. Among the many coastlines is a pool of water sheltered by large boulders, a sweet spot for swimming at midday. There's a trail he made himself through a cluster of flowering trees, the path layered with fallen petals. Much of the island is private yet open and he almost never sees Minho. Almost.  
  
Perhaps it is inevitable, having quite a few places that function like common areas. It is the day Jonghyun wants to nap near the waterfall, cool rush of mist and sound that will hopefully lull him into slumber. The morning of that day he had spent pacing the shore on which Minho had found him. His mind on the run, having awakened him well before sunrise, an immense frustration bubbling up and he leaves the earliest he's ever left, Minho's sleeping form curled beneath both of their blankets. The freedom they now have, desired and given to them suddenly, without structure and convenience. This island existence stands starkly against their previous life, and on that morning nothing could make up for the reality and sharp desire to be where he belongs. At work, in the city, with a phone in hand and product in his hair. Not here; far from his friends and family, on a beautiful but ultimately nowhere beach. All the natural beauty couldn't reach him in those hours. He could be practicing the drums, starting a new instrument, immersing himself in records that he has yet to give proper attention, reading the usual feeds and blogs, studying Japanese, writing lyrics and music.  
  
Enough. It is only suffering that he is imposing upon himself. Jonghyun's frustration manifesting in the form of frenzied pacing along the beach, for hours after sunrise and through two bottles of water. He is fed up with the beguiling line of the horizon, seeming to laugh at him despite the firm knowledge that indeed there is a world out there. He turns away and heads to the waterfall.  
  
And that's where Jonghyun finds Minho. They usually meet up again in late afternoon, and it would be several more hours until that time of day. He knows that the both of them have developed an ear for the sound of walking, the upright shuffle of approach regardless of terrain. He obeys an instinct to not call out his friend's name, his back now in sight, sitting down on the rocky slope of the water way. The sway of Minho's body, the tension and the small twitches. Jonghyun recognizes it, feet root themselves to the spot. He wonders if Minho is going to reach orgasm, and how many times he had gotten there because Jonghyun has been unable to reach it, on the island. Many times, thwarted. Minho leans back but even then, all he can see is the crown of his friend's head, the suggestive movements of hard breathing and rocking hips.  
  
Jonghyun feels a startle of cold embarrassment when Minho calls out, “Hyung!”  
  
A one syllable response, and he still stuttered that simple sound, is what Jonghyun can manage before he walks over. Minho slips into the water before Jonghyun sees anything that he hadn't seen before. “Sorry for hogging the waterfall.”  
  
Jonghyun only manages to say, “you've gotta watch out for the leeches, man,” with a shake of his head.  Minho doesn't reply, goes on to dip fully below the water, returns to the surface with a strong shake of his hair and broad smiling laughter.  
  
He wants to talk to Minho about masturbation but holds back. What would he do, ask for tips? The night is hot and they both sleep in a sprawl. The next day he is grumpy and quiet for most of the time, not talking even to himself while alone. Minho gives him a hug at dinner and a warm thrum goes through his chest. And that night, Minho wants to sleep near the beach. He had assumed without asking that they would continue to sleep in what they've come to call the Hillside. Jonghyun goes with him, though. The thought of sleeping alone is one he feels incapable of fully considering right now.  
  
That hot day translates into a warm night of a new moon. The band of the Milky Way is brighter without the moon's interference. Together clad in shorts, they lay on the bed of leaves and grasses, trying to identify constellations. They could have worn more clothes since the sun had dried all of it to a nice crisp. But habit along with warm temperatures kept the clothes off. "Hyung, one of those stars out there is a star named for SHINee, from our fans." The thought, or rather the fact, gives Jonghyun comfort that he silently accepts.  
  
The demon of comparison unearths its ugly self as Jonghyun feels his body resisting sleep. Minho is good, is on top of taking care of both himself and Jonghyun. Minho cultivates the column of smoke, starting it as early as he can and keeping it fueled for as long as he could. There was a manic week where he'd burned it for seven days straight, day and night, with only some help from Jonghyun who slept in fits and starts. Minho will ask Jonghyun to hum his latest creation, remembers particular ones that he likes. Minho frequently collets fruit into a surplus and likes to talk to Jonghyun in a mix of Japanese and Korean, of which 'annyeong tomodachi' never fails to elicit a smile. The both of them alter most of the clothing they come across and Minho finds a lot of them. They are far less shy about seeing each others bodies but they still don't look. Jonghyun assumes that Minho has been doing the same. Jonghyun lets the thoughts fall through and hit the bottom, stirring up the sediment and clouding his mind.  
  
Minho still isn't asleep and Jonghyun feels like talking. Right now breaking human silence, measuring the volume that he needs to speak in order to be heard over the hum of natural night, but not speak too loudly either, feels like standing on a precipice. It shouldn't, they're friends. They know each other so well now. Required of the circumstance. They've rehashed the things they miss about home many times, but have yet to seem to tire of it. In his head he says aloud, 'What do you miss about Seoul?' But Seoul is not really his concern. 'Modern life'? It's so pointed to say it that way. Certainly less pointed than dorm life, to which he himself answer in Minho's voice, 'dorm life? I still have to pick up after you. How's this island different from dorm life?' He exhales a half laugh. “What do you miss about... normal life?” He says it in a whisper. Slowly, Minho moves but Jonghyun doesn't know if he's awake, or if he even heard.  
  
The reply is a whisper. “Before this, here?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jonghyun replies with a hush. The sound of crying insects are all around them, with rolling waves in the far distance. Were they going to continue whispering, he wonders.  
  
“Ice cubes.” Minho says. “Football.”  
  
And Jonghyun laughs.  
  
“Almost everything. Electricity. Video games. My family.” Minho moves to lay on his side, to face Jonghyun.  
  
Jonghyun misses those things too. “So many things, I miss so many things. I miss my laptop, which I literally will never get back now. I miss Byulroo. I miss group chats. Clean socks. Shaving cream. Deodorant. Headphones, my car.” A pause. “My glasses. I miss my glasses. And contacts.”  
  
“I thought that had somehow gotten better, your eyesight.”  
  
“I still miss them. It's not as good as they could be with adjusting.”  
  
After some time passes, Minho speaks up with a change of subject. “It sounds to me like you're really stressed out.”  
  
The words hang in the air between them, and he suspects that Minho is still looking at him.  
  
“No one likes being told what to do. But I hope you've been trying to take care of yourself too, not letting bad thoughts and feelings run rampant. And beyond getting food into your stomach, sleeping the bare amount.”  
  
Listening to Minho's words, he remains silent. The inability to take refuge within himself, which he previously thought so strong to the point of having impervious barriers, is disappointing to Jonghyun. It was strong for years, allowing him to survive the idol machine so far. After a quiet stretch he says, “I know. Thank you.”   
  
“Let me know, hyung, if there's anything I can do to help you. We could touch, or maybe we can kiss a little.”  
  
It is Jonghyun's turn to send pointed words. He's failing to hold back all his exasperation. “Why are you like this? Taking care of other people is good but that won't be necessary.” He turns over, back facing Minho.  
  
Minho's still turned toward him, says this before moving to lay facing upwards toward the sky once again. “It's not an offer of charity, Jonghyun-hyung.”  
  
For the next few nights, they sleep in separate places. Jonghyun in the Hillside and Minho elsewhere, most days appearing at dawn with food and water. Minho doesn't tell him where he's been sleeping and Jonghyun doesn't ask. Against his better self, for days Jonghyun holds off on delving into these feelings. Finally when he gives them form with words, it is disappointment that he feels weighing down his bones. There's some envy or jealousy of a sort too, weak and lurking in the shadows of his mind. But Jonghyun has run out of energy already, from failing over and over again in so many ways of trying to take care of himself. Thoughts about Minho and his offer, about how great and truly well-adjusted and frankly, optimistic his friend is, aren't charged like they could be.  
  
After that, Jonghyun is able to orgasm. It is in the morning, with thoughts of deep channels, fragrant hair, slow build of focused movement on only himself, his body. The end result is a feeling of completing a perfunctory task, not matching the effort he feels he'd poured into it. It's a bit boring and nice but good in the same way one feels good after showing someone, or rather something, up. There is a pettiness present. He feels like it was a minor achievement in a game. At least that day Jonghyun is rewarded with a long, dreamless nap.  
  
It's easy when their first kiss happens.  
  
Minho explains that he's taken it on many test runs already, that he doesn't want to go alone. It can take both of their weight, he insists. Unsure if it's genuine confidence behind the statement, or an attempt to draw Jonghyun into an adventure he'd rather not take, he puts them aside, says, “let's go!,” with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. And off they are on Minho's raft, into the ocean.  
  
The day turns out to be equal parts fun and terrifying. Terrifying, due to possibilities of bad things happening rather than anything bad actually happening. Fun, because: the weight of the both of them sinks the raft well below the surface, but it still floats. The paddles Minho devised are weak, then fall apart and are left to drift away. They didn't bring nearly enough food and water. They drift very far from the shores of their island. Beneath them, the coral reef and fine sands are beautiful, as are the large creatures of which one of them is shaped like a shark, with some sort of pattern on its skin. Jonghyun sees it first, its large patterned body at once alarming and beautiful, as he smacks Minho to get his attention. They hand paddle their way to a sand bar, their collective weight at times lodging them in the sand. Instead of floating back to the island, they return by walking along a sand bar, carrying the raft over their heads as protection from the midday sun. Crabs scuttle away and fish give them a wide berth as they meander, the breeze unexpectedly cool.  
  
The path leads them to where a run-off stream meets the sea, an oddly familiar sight. Leaving aside the raft on high ground, they walk a parallel path with the creek to find that it is fed by the very waterfall they love so much. Time speeds up even more. Minho is magnetic, an infectious joy to which Jonghyun is always drawn. Warm browned skin, possibly sunburned on the shoulders. Long limbs with defined muscles, and along his back too. Shaggy hair with black roots and split ends. Laugh lines. Scars. Hyper-pigmented spots, stretch marks that are unexpected and still charming.  
  
Jonghyun is suffused with sunlight and a carefree feeling. In the rock shelter behind the waterfall they help each other clean off the sand and salt, walking in and out of the fall, splashing water on each other. When he turns around ready to launch another splash, Minho's lips are there, like the million times before he's offered them to Jonghyun both in pubic and private. It's a funny peck on the lips, a cute and pleased expression through his eyes, breath heavy with an inertia and expecting, and only a split second before Minho bends down with his lips tenderly open and presses on Jonghyun's lips. It's an awkward angle, Jonghyun sitting down on a stone with feet in the water while Minho is on a rock that's higher up. There's no stopping Jonghyun, who will always try to kiss those lips.  
  
Minho climbs down to meet him, phrases of his movements at turns nervous and even more eager. Jonghyun is taken in by Minho's soft lips, raw from peeling, Minho's hands, one on his knee and the other at his neck, thumb brushing behind his ear. Jonghyun lets himself free fall, hands move to the small of his back. Physical and so carefree. Minho pulls away and disappears through the teeming curtain of water. Jonghyun is left feeling dazed.  
  
Their camaraderie is shaped by the waterfall kiss. Minho will wake him up in the middle of the night, coax him out of a bad dream. Jonghyun finds himself watching Minho whenever they're together; blush of his cheeks, trace lines of his veins, the amount of black in his eyes when they look at each other, and how they keep looking at each other but not making prolonged eye contact. The sight of Minho turned away from Jonghyun, of real black hair showing through, of tan lines, of that callipygian ass. Of all the useless, fancy words for him to remember, this instance makes Jonghyun laugh. Minho wipes at something on Jonghyun's face, holding his chin. Jonghyun fixes Minho's collar, sharing breathing space. Their time together is not a standoff, rather it's a constant tension of walking a fine line. Every touch and all space, no matter their distance is heated. At times it spills into erotic, from a gasp Minho exhales in his sleep, or the day they avoid touching one another, skirting. Though they have been together nearly every day since, they have not kissed again. Like the Earth and the Moon, Jonghyun thinks. Revolving around each other. Not crossing that barrier again, not now.  
  
It rains so much and so steadily for days in a row that Minho actually wonders aloud if the rain will ever stop. There are points where they couldn't find enough old and dried matter to burn, so the fires fizzle out. In between walks of looking for debris and material and bouts of paralyzing wonderment, Jonghyun and Minho find themselves rescuing worms that uproot themselves to avoid drowning only to avail their bodies to a fate of bird beaks or perishing in heat and daylight. For certain stretches, the rain falls so hard and so much at once that it sounds like thunderous applause, but without the accompanying cheers and fan lights. At night, it is the silence of wilderness, a non-human space filled with rustle and scuttle of leaves up top at the canopy level and down at ground level, throaty calls of birds or else unimaginable creatures, chirps and hums of insects, the crashing of waves and bubbling of the sand, all around the crackle of their dull, sputtering fire. There's a night where for a few hours, lightning flashes from a nearby but unknown direction with erratic rolls of thunder. Jonghyun instinctively burrows himself into Minho's blankets and pulls him into a close embrace. There are no bugs that he is afraid of anymore and he has acclimatized to the heat and its humidity, so there's no excuse. It's a natural action, which feels strange as his head replays the movements but since Minho didn't question him, he too tries to not second guess himself.  
  
In a maneuver of overestimation and imbalance, Minho lets a stone roll over his big left toe. Jonghyun immediately leaps up to help as Minho mutters curses in every direction possible and hops around on his other foot. It turns an ugly purple and strange green color for a few hours when finally the next day the nail bed is black. On a walk uphill, Minho accidentally bumps it against a rock and almost trips but he braces himself in time.  
  
“Do we need to wrap it up or do anything special for it? Looks like the swelling's gone down.” Jonghyun looks at the toe from all angles.  
  
“Eh. I just need to not let it touch anything, I think. I can still walk. Just not as fast as usual.” Minho gently prods at his toe and wiggles it. “I don't think it broke anything. Moving it doesn't give me any sharp pains.” He moves to stand and Jonghyun has his hands and arms ready to steady him. “Hey, hey, what am I, old? Besides,” Minho picks up the giant stick he picked off the tree from early on. “I have a stick.”  
  
Jonghyun has to restrain himself from slapping Minho's ass. Though he probably would have been fine, Jonghyun's not in the mood for Minho exaggeratedly toppling over to mess with him. They begin the trek uphill again at a slower, measured pace.  
  
“I hope nothing's broken. We can't handle that. What now, though? It just grows out?”  
  
Minho looks confused at Jonghyun's ignorance. “Yeah? I thought that's what happened. My body will just take care of it on its own. The blood under my nail is gonna annoy the hell out of me, but the nail will fall off and a new one will form under it.”  
  
Jonghyun shrugs. “I dunno, I've never had anything like this happen. Sure, I've kicked my share of couches and table legs but nothing that resulted in that.”  
  
“Well.” Minho flicks at one of Jonghyun's earlobes. “Your body took care of this on its own, didn't it?” A pause. “Now I'm starting to doubt what I know about smashed fingernails, even though I'm pretty sure I'm right.”  
  
“Yeah.” The trees are tall and towering on this particular slope, the canopy vegetation thick. Not a bad place to slow down or stop. “It's nice and cool down here.” Jonghyun stares upward and slows down. “I wonder how old these trees are.”  
  
Minho grumbles about a manicure set of sorts they found, rusted over thus unusable.  
  
Jonghyun looks down at his hands. Dry, cracked skin and wrinkled knuckles. “When I was little.” Uneven, brittle, and cracked fingernails. “The one time I remember seeing my grandfather before he died was when my mother was clipping his toenails for him. He was so old, though not to the point that he couldn't bend to clip his toenails. We put him on a chair while the rest of us remained sitting on the floor. My grandmother and mom. My sister and me.”  
  
They're silent for a length, but with the rumble of the noise around them Jonghyun doesn't feel the depth of Minho's silence until he's speaks and processes the words, their meaning. “I've never met my grandparents on my mother's side. One of them is still alive, I think. She's up north.”  
  
The first day in which that set of storms clear up, Jonghyun snatches them a large crab. A few times previous they've seen them, always keeping their distance: first, walking around and being enormous, seemingly up to a meter from leg to leg; then frighteningly enough, cracking coconuts; then climbing palms to knock down coconuts. He's able to get it because he watches it, puzzled, in a pool of water that formed after the rainstorm. After it stops struggling and sinks into the water does he realize that he just witnessed this giant-ass crab drown. Minho seems skeptical when he reports this, but doesn't say anything probably because they were both equally apprehensive of these crabs. They argue about the shape on its underside, whether it is male or female, and can't come to an agreement. They also can't agree whether or not an adult female crab will always have eggs or not, so they don't reach a conclusion. Things such as this, among the hundreds of issues they've come across, make Jonghyun shake his head.  
  
“I have so many things to look up when we get home.”  
  
Minho stops to look up at Jonghyun, mouth open and finally says, “That's the spirit.”  
  
They eat the delicious crab for lunch and suffer through gurgling stomachs, then the ruins. Did they not cook it well enough? Was it poisonous and now they were going to die? After a few uncomfortable hours, they finally begin to feel better. Minho first, then eventually Jonghyun too. They agree to be sick in specific areas, away from each other and away from their usual spots, which are too distant. In the aftermath, they find themselves coping with the day by watching their favorite tide pool spot fill up then drain of the sea. The strong smell, at times a stench, of low tide. Minho notices something amiss when he's wading in the pools.  
  
“I think he's gone.”  
  
Jonghyun is confused and walks over to where Minho is kneeling in the water. “Who?”  
  
“The octopus.” Minho curses underneath his breath. “I've found a body.”  
  
He's caught up in a loop of thought about the octopus's sex, pretty sure that Minho doesn't know any better than he does of how to differentiate between male and female. It's like when people and netizens assume Roo is a boy when he's repeatedly said she's a girl dog. Jonghyun ditches the thought to look at the still, white-coral jelly body of an octopus in Minho's hands. Jonghyun remembers the first time it is pointed out to him and the animal actually seemed to recognize Minho. It refused to meet Jonghyun's hand, and continued to do so until the last time he'd seen it and it accepted his touch. The sensation of touching the live octopus is foreign, a memory unlike anything else in his life thus far. So strange, and this entire phenomenon with Minho and his octopus friend still fills him with awe.  
  
It's so startling. Jonghyun marks another tally on their day-count. He knows so little about octopi, their varieties, their lifespan, their habits. He has so many questions and only knows how to eat them. Jonghyun wants to say that Minho doesn't really know if its the same octopus because surely there are many of them, but he doesn't because the octopus that does recognize him may coincidentally never appear again. He also wants to say how delicious octopus is, but lets Minho take care of voicing that particular thought. Even after cannibalism jokes, the heavy feeling carries into the next morning with time's passing weighing down their hearts. Morbid streams of thought rise. Maybe someone will have cancer, maybe someone will be dead when they get home. And tangential thoughts too. If they were women, they would be constantly reminded of time passing, each month. Unless they lost too much weight or pass through trauma, which the two of them have experienced and somehow survived. Jonghyun thinks about how sad it is that he knows this about women's biology since he's heard of the situation many times, but at least it's not a bad thing to know. Right? Or maybe someone will be pregnant and or married by the time they return. Slowly it decreases, the dwelling on what exactly they might be missing back at home.  
  
Like everything else, time eases the burdensome thoughts with change. A natural occurrence.  
  
Some things continue; Minho is bothersome. "Hyung, stop biting your nails."  
  
"No." Jonghyun stops short of letting free his annoyance and manages the statement, "I'm in need of my protein, OK."  
  
Though Minho manages to keep the one from the day before down without incident, Jonghyun still really, really doesn’t want to try Minho's fire-roasted hissing cockroach. Minho repeats the same assurances from that day, all while still not telling Jonghyun where he found them, how he caught them. "I cleaned them and they're well done, I promise!" These vague reassurances do nothing to cure Jonghyun's disgust. Holy hell, why did Minho have to take his quip about protein seriously?  
  
"Hyung it's like, a shrimp. A crunchy, dry shrimp." Minho has a mouthful now, as if Jonghyun is Simba and Minho is Timon and Pumbaa, combined to account for the enthusiasm. "Hyung, I promise you'll be OK," Minho says around his totally gross mouthful. He has no moment to parse those words before Minho's got his mouth on Jonghyun's and the entirety of it, strange mush that smelled most like burning wood than anything else and crunchy bits of fragile exoskeleton, is deposited into his mouth. Jonghyun screams, maybe. Minho definitely chokes on water, laughing. Jonghyun swallows. And the next day he is alive without incident. No ruins, no aches.  
  
Things take a slight melancholy turn when the weather cools slightly more and some plants respond by shedding their flowers. Jonghyun welcomes the change, but Minho is less enthusiastic. The bug and mosquito population also decreases, which pleases the both of them. They've been sleeping separately, and begin to wear clothes to sleep because waking up cold is extremely unpleasant. Minho finds two shirts, and as he's insisting that Jonghyun choose and he'll take the other, he says, “let's sleep together again.” Jonghyun agrees immediately and his insides warm at the common usage of the words that don't literally mean the act of only lying next to someone, dozing. One of the shirts is a five-button henley, a size that will comfortably fit for the both of them and the other is a strangely proportioned baseball tee with a short torso and long sleeves. Jonghyun picks the henley.  
  
Looking at Minho in that shirt though, Jonghyun thinks he's made a mistake. His eyes are drawn to Minho's figure, but at least he's not wearing those jeans he'd torn up into shorts anymore. Frequently going around in just shorts, sometimes wearing shoes with them when necessary. After their kiss, Jonghyun knows he's been eyed and has done his fair share. Of course it's about the awful high temperatures too, the sticky and suffocating humidity that at the beginning still took even Minho a while to adjust into. He thanks the turning season for the temperature drop. Last night, Jonghyun dreams about his favorite gray coat, set with a cream scarf, red trousers and black shoes. It's an outfit that he's unlikely to wear but the dream is light, trivial, and preferable to chasing ghosts. What's he going to dream about tonight, if he can even sleep? Minho's narrow, tan torso and dip of his spine accentuated by the strong back muscles. When Minho puts on sweatpants that settle low on his hips, to walk through an itchy block of grass, Jonghyun is gripped by the sight of muscles wrapped around hips with dark lines and shadows dipping below the waistline. A song with sexually charged lyrics pounds through his mind. The thought of Minho's hairy nipples are amusing but still very distracting. Jonghyun can't remember the word for that little ring of color around nipples. He swears it is on the tip of his tongue.  
  
He definitely made the wrong decision with the shirt.  
  
Jonghyun spends that entire day thinking about how he's subjecting himself to viewing Minho in that damn top. When he sees that Minho undeniably looks down his unbuttoned shirt, a clear thrill of excitement zips through him. The day fades and the strongest source of light is now the flames of the fire, but Jonghyun is sure of its occurance. Minho's expression isn't as guilty as he expects, more curiosity than anything else.  
  
"I think your birthday is coming up," Minho says. There's apprehension in his manner.  
  
“I don't want to think about that,” Jonghyun says with a shrug. “I'm happy I'm alive.” He means it too, thinks lightly about how quickly the month of April came upon them, his birthday being some day amongst one of these. Possibly today, possibly tomorrow or yesterday. Neither of them know how many days are in March and nor do they put full confidence in their tally.  
  
“I have something for you though,” Minho says  
  
Jonghyun half expects him to offer a kiss, but instead Minho produces a glass bottle filled with tiny, iridescent spheres. Like very small berries. They are of many colors, but most of them are a deep blue. He's completely taken aback by Minho's gift.  
  
“These are beautiful,” Jonghyun says as he scoots closer to the fire to get a better look at them, rolls a few onto his palm. Minho rolls some around his hand with a finger, both of them admiring. “Where did you get them?”  
  
“I saw birds collecting them,” Minho replies. “Some I took directly from plants, others are dropped from nests. It took me a while but I was able to fill up the bottle. As far as I can tell, they have no actual food-like substance inside, so they'll be shiny indefinitely.”  
  
Jonghyun returns all the tiny spheres into the bottle and rolls it from hand to hand, looks up at Minho, and says, “thank you.”  
  
Minho looks so shy for the first time in ages. “Happy birthday, Jonghyun-hyung.”  
  
There's a tension that Jonghyun wants to pop, and he hopes that the next thing he says will succeed in relieving it. “I thought you were going to offer me a kiss.”  
  
When Minho doesn't return his eye contact, Jonghyun knows he's just made it worse. “I,” Minho begins. “I will, if you'll take it.”  
  
“Did I just ruin our friendship,” Jonghyun asks, “because I don't want to ruin our friendship.”  
  
“It's hard to say, because we're here. Just ourselves. Is it weird? Is this a natural conclusion?” Minho goes on. “I don't want to ruin our friendship either. I need us to essentially keep, well, getting along and not being awkward by making it a relationship.”  
  
Jonghyun knows its impulsive when he shrugs and Minho, not unreasonably, reads flippancy in the gesture. “Sorry, I'm not,” pauses to carefully choose a word, “treating our relationship, our friendship, lightly. Honest. We're in a serious relationship already. Now. From day one of this. Arriving here. I'm sorry,” Jonghyun reiterates.    
  
There is a pause where Jonghyun doesn't know what he should be doing with his body, each option seeming to only make things more awkward. He doesn't want to discomfit Minho further. Or himself, for the matter.  In the lull of their conversation, a strong wind blows and the fire surges with crackles, as if to further rub in that Jonghyun brought all this tension to the fore without the ability to handle it.  Stupid. But expected.  
  
When he sneaks a look at Minho he finds an amused expression. His attempt to play it cool has clearly failed and Minho is no longer going to pretend otherwise.  
  
“Hyung, you are so not smooth.” Minho looks beautiful in the light, drastic shadows cut handsome lines all over his form, sitting cross-legged with a hand on one knee and the elbow of his other arm propped on the other. Minho is leaning his head on that arm, shaking his head at Jonghyun.  
  
“I know,” Jonghyun says with his best scary grin and rocks with laughter. It's not funny but he cannot contain it. “Really. This is a serious relationship! You're the only other person on this island with me!”  
  
Jonghyun stands up because he cannot unleash all this energy while sitting. He doesn't know where this energy has been hiding from him but now his inhibitions are down as he paces around and puts the fire between himself and Minho—  
  
“Are you ready? I mean, this is it. For me, you're happening. Now. I mean you have been, so are you ready? I'm finally ready. I'm serious, okay! Totally serious. Everything here, every single thing now has a weight. And you're laughing at me, but that's alright! And maybe everything happens for a reason! Which I think isn't true but still! I'm here. Not going anywhere. Tell me, Minho. Tell me when,”  
  
—and he's almost shouting, at himself with Minho as his audience.  
  
Minho leans back, hollers, “Now! Come kiss me, you fool!” And breaks out into that extremely obnoxious laughter, head thrown back and all his teeth bared.  
  
Jonghyun points at him, says, “You've got no room to talk about being smooth.”  
  
Never one to back down, Minho rises to his feet with a flourish and brings the shiny, gold space blanket with him.  
  
“Watch me!” Minho declares as he ties the blanket up around his torso, up to his armpits, and pulls it tight around his body. “Who needs smoothness when you're seductive?”  
  
Jonghyun watches Minho sashay about in the shiny gold, his own body laughing, almost convulsing. There's nothing to doubt when it comes to Choi Minho. He's like sunscreen, keeping you safe while you roam far and wide. Like an elephant, equal parts rough and gentle, with a long memory. Like a fire, taking everything you have and dispersing it to the winds. How does any single person manage to find another to love on this Earth? Love is the only word he can think of right now, and he says it quietly to himself. It is a whisper in his mind. How many clumsy similes can Jonghyun compose?  
  
Nothing is safe, Jonghyun thinks as he and Minho circle one another in a kind of slow dance. Hands come in contact, hands steady on each other's shoulders. Their kiss is careful and slow. Jonghyun is finding it easy to not be self-conscious, to put aside thoughts about the million ways this could turn out badly. He pulls away just far enough to see Minho's eyes and kisses him again, open mouthed and inviting him in. Every action or inaction has an implicit risk, which may take the rest of his life to learn to calculate, learn to fully accept its reality. He bites lightly on Minho's lower lip, stiff facial hair evident then and finds that he doesn't care. He pulls their bodies close and it feels so good to get intimate. That he's with Minho makes it at once easier and more difficult. Hands in his hair and tracing along his jaw, scratching lightly along his back is nice but he really wants these hands to go lower. They know little about each other's sex lives because so many other facets of their selves are already incidentally shared with the band. He feels that he must hold back, to not scare away the only other person on the island.  
  
“Can you?” Jonghyun asks as he places one of Minho's hands on his ass. “And can I?” Minho can't seem to keep direct eye contact with Jonghyun. “It's OK if—“ you're embarrassed, he is about to say, but he is interrupted by Minho bursting into giggles.  
  
“Your eyes were, I can't handle looking at you sometimes,” Minho says as he buries his face in his hands.  
  
Jonghyun pockets his hands but doesn't step away, waits for Minho who doesn't step back either. He shrugs when Minho looks at him, smiling and inhaling deeply. “I don't know how far you want to go,” Jonghyun says.  
  
The question is posed again, but for Jonghyun to answer. “How far do you want to go?” In the low light of the fire, it's harder to read Minho's expression.  
  
Jonghyun looks down at the ground then back at Minho. “Far?” It's his turn to laugh, more like a short curt sound of venting embarrassment. “We don't have to take anything off. But let's touch,” Jonghyun puts his hands on Minho's hips, “and kiss,” and laughs into Minho's mouth when he has to elevate himself a tad, “a lot.” Minho is laughing too.  
  
Jonghyun wants something soft for them to lay on. As they're heading to their sleeping spot, he says, “I wish we had a real bed.”  
  
And as they're gathering various clothes and leaves, shaking them out before layering them down, Minho says, “Yeah. Not that it has ever stopped anyone.” Jonghyun feels the coursing rush of arousal when Minho crawls towards him and kisses him with more force than before. He feels a hand slide down his chest then into his shirt, and Jonghyun puts a hand behind Minho's neck and pulls him down on top of him. Lust is reigning high as Jonghyun pushes upward against Minho without caring about what it may or may not look like, be it needy or slutty or whatever. He is not here to feast for fun, he is not here just for the thrill, not the ride. Minho may or may not need more direction but he's doing so well now with his one leg between Jonghyun's, holding his hands down, lips and tongue taking in what definitely is embarrassingly salty skin. The thought doesn't take root, not when Minho is touching his nipples and grinding against his thigh, and Jonghyun feels himself let out some contortion of noise, grab not-so-nicely at Minho's hair.  
  
He doesn't wait to pull him back up, wanting to see Minho's face. Jonghyun needs to not talk, needs to not say something stupid. Breathing hard, he knows its a little rude to stare, to leer while feeling up Minho. Or down, rather; fingers and nails press and mark going up and down Minho's back, then to squeeze well-shaped buttocks. Hands at each side gripping the material at Minho's hips, he aligns his own and focuses narrowly on Minho's face.  On the pressure Minho is pushing down in slow rocking motion against his own hips, on how Minho still wants to keep kissing him, breathing through the nose and mouth inelegantly, the both of them. How then Minho grabs one of Jonghyun's hands and takes the initiative to interlace their fingers, close his eyes, and kiss him slowly.  
  
Jonghyun's own eyes fall shut because that's when the last inkling of hesitation dissolves out of his body.  
  
Morning comes: their routine these days have drifted significantly from the one that formed when they first arrived. There's still the gathering of food and water, the collection of fodder to feed their fire. It's not unusual to fall asleep sated then wake up to a dried mess. Jonghyun's worries are still numerous but less intense. Minho says he's singing more and he's not sure if he can believe that to be an objective observation, doesn't say that, but he can't help the smile upon hearing it. They've taken to late afternoon swims on the beach, sometimes naked because there's no leeches, and because they can. Minho likes to walk far into the water, up to his chin and Jonghyun likes to swim parallel to the shore. Their tan lines are faint now, from taking naps before and after these swims. More than once, they masturbate together on the open beach. Minho admits to the unremarkable memory of touching another man's penis for the first time, how unexpectedly normal it truly is, being both a milestone and not. Kisses are given freely; on the cheeks, the forehead, on hands, on lips, elsewhere. Holding hands is more rare and contains a different kind of happiness. Their silences, more often than not, are comfortable. Their conversations remain just as stupid and trivial, some of them. The atmosphere sometimes changes in an instant, but still they do not have any serious arguments.  
  
“Once, at a bar, I witnessed an argument about fighting and sex. This one guy claimed that fighting is better than sex and, I mean, who cares. But this other guy was so exasperated that they argued for almost an hour.”  
  
“Maybe there really are things that are better than sex.”  
  
Jonghyun frowns. “I don't know, it seems kind of—”  
  
“Well, how about music?” Jonghyun understands that he's being challenged for the hell of it. Minho is looking at him, chewing with his mouth still full. “Better than sex?”  
  
“But sex is beautiful.” Jonghyun had not expected Minho to push back at all, clamoring for words. Minho is leaning back on hands, paused all motion to grin at him. “What, you think I'm kidding? Seriously. Sex is beautiful.”  
  
Minho resumes chewing. “Well. This one girl, she once observed to me that penises look like deep sea flora to her. She also talked about the various spatial vacuums that happen between bodies during sex. Not just the obvious uh, in and out, but between mouths and even between flat chests. Real beautiful, too smart.”  
  
“OK, ok. Yeah, if you put it that way, then yeah parts of sex are weird and possibly gross. And I think I can see what she means, deep sea plants.” Jonghyun rolls his eyes, too, though. “You'd better not be serious about that 'too smart,'  remark though.” He shoves Minho, who flops over instantly in a heap.  
  
They compare facial hair patterns and disagree on what kind of hair pattern they'd observed on the other members. Jonghyun jokes that Kibum would have a full beard within a couple days which Minho agrees with. Patting each other's moustaches, Minho says that he wishes they had a mirror.  
  
“I can be your mirror.” Minho doesn't respond and just looks at Jonghyun while lightly caressing his own cheek. “C'mon. Ask. I know you want to.”  
  
“Mirror, mirror on the wall...”  
  
“You look exceptionally ugly today," is his swift reply as he rubs his own chin. Minho attempts to tickle Jonghyun by using his facial hair, which fails, but Jonghyun admits that it's a strange sensation before going to town on Minho with strictly his fingers and hands. It's fun, this haphazard process of getting to know each other, and their bodies. There's a sort of emergent pattern, dependent on reading the mood in the air, erring on the side of slow. Minho tells him about the fight he had with his older brother, the last time he may ever have talked to him. Tells him about the time in grade school, he wishes he had defended an old friend from teasing, a girl whose body was apparently not up to some standard, and took no action so as to not be accused of liking her. Shares with Jonghyun his own uncertainties about their future together, ones he had before washing up on this island but especially now. The weather is turning cooler and they wonder how they'll last another season here, winter.  
  
“I hope Choijin-hyung survived. I mean, fans are probably relieved that he's off duty, no longer slapping them around. Maybe... hopefully he's on leave. Or he lost an arm or someth-”  
  
“Hyung!”  
  
“What? What? Did I say something weird?”  
  
Minho laughs and shakes his head. “When they find us they're gonna have to give you media training again. And I'll get dragged into it too.”  
  
Jonghyun elbows Minho's side gently with a wide grin stretching his face. “Hey, I'm sure it's relieving for him, too, to not have to shove people.”  
  
“You're a keeper,” Minho says with a slow shake of his head.  
  
Nearly four months is a long time to be missing. It's a short enough time period that will sneak by, but enough to cast a long shadow of doubt when recounted upon. Neither of them are sure if their tally is accurate anymore, being that they have one in the Hillside and the first one, on the palm along the shore and because sometimes they're too involved or busy to be sure if they've tallied that day or not.  
  
Minho tells Jonghyun, in a roundabout way, that he worries that Jonghyun might get the idea of waking up one night and just walking out to sea, and he'd never know what happened to him. Jonghyun is someone who is far more than the only other person on this island. It's sick to hear such a thing and find a small sort of comfort within it, and Jonghyun is uncomfortable with the colliding chain of thoughts and feelings. Minho is wrong, though. Jonghyun has a morbid streak and thinks about death, but his will to live means he's never seriously been driven to contemplate ending his own life, no matter the struggle.  
  
He does say something about Minho's imaginary scenario. “Well, maybe if I woke up alone on this island. Maybe if I didn't have you.”  
  
In a solitary float of the raft, Jonghyun doesn't drift far. Not in comparison to his trip with Minho, and he doesn't particularly want to either. It's a different perspective that he's looking for, of the island. Predictably it's hot, and he's crouching beneath a quickly withering banana leaf. At least he has the sense to grab a cap, one that's a little too big, though he didn't have the sense to do this at a time of day when the sun's rays aren't at their peak intensity. He can't see the entire island, but from this distance everything is smaller. The raft is an excellent flotation device but even though he's alone it still sinks below the surface, so his shorts are wet. Slow rolls of the ocean are taking him and the raft up and down. Instead of feeling like his life and Minho's existence are trivial, he feels like there's more that he's missing. What tiny happenings are they, humanity as a whole, missing on the smaller scales? The ant scale. Not that he's got much sympathy for the ants right now. Too many have bitten him. The tide pools, where he and Minho catch the unlucky fish that get stranded there. The microscopic level, creatures that can live in hot sulfur and airless environments in deep water, in bubbling lava.  
  
Annoyance nags him, that his butt is cool and wet while the rest of his body is baking in the sun. Jonghyun wishes he had a concentrated on creating a clearer memory of the way the island looked from afar on his first ocean raft trip with Minho, so he could compare it to what it looks like now, months later. Lots of green, some patches of deciduous trees, and not nearly enough flowers, all surrounded by a backdrop of blues. He spends a few minutes perusing the various dark shapes moving in the water beneath him before letting his legs dangle. He wonders where Minho is now, what he's doing while Jonghyun is subjecting himself to a sunburn. In the spots where the white sand is showing through, the water is a color not unlike that of their official fanclub. A little more green than the official color, but still so much like it. The wind is gentle and it's so much more quiet here, occupied mostly by water lapping up against the raft and his legs. It occurs to him that the sea is slowly eating away at the raft he's sitting on, his still living body pushing against the tide of entropy. He's strong for now, until forced interruption or the tide of time draws away at his ability to heal. It's useless, these thoughts.  Jonghyun sucks at his teeth, spits into the water.  
  
He decides to go back. But the moment he does, he sees it, not a yard away from him. A large tortoise, a little beneath the surface of the water. An unmistakable shape. He remembers that back in childhood a tortoise bit the finger of a friend. The feel of the shell, like a dry log. He tries to remember if he'd ever eaten tortoise and can't. Jonghyun rolls his eyes at himself. The shell of this tortoise is sizable, at least as large as his own torso. He squints. Is the tortoise rising to the surface? He can now make out the geometric shapes on its shell, the light and dark patterns. It's further than an arms length away, not that he will risk falling into the water to touch it. He thinks he can see it's face, the eyes studying him, his human shape and what it means for the tortoise. The sliver of time that this magnificent creature occupies is so much longer than that of most humans, yet still a blip in geological frame. Jonghyun likes to think of tortoises as trees. Sort of the way a manatee is a sea cow. The tortoise lives just as long as trees. Or it can. But the comparison pretty much ends there.    
  
The tortoise lifts its head above water and he can see its eyes, its nostrils. He and the tortoise study each other, all while he counts each slow wave that pushes them up and pulls them down, for three pulses of the ocean. Then the tortoise pulls its face down and sinks again, below the surface. A sense of satisfaction and contentment thrums through Jonghyun's chest as he watches the turtle swim away, then slowly paddles himself back to shore.  
  
That night, while staring out into the darkness of the sea, Jonghyun thinks he sees a human shape out there, walking through the waves. Jonghyun doesn't ask about its reality, its solidity but observes until he can no longer see it.  
  
Jonghyun is told that his toes are curling, and it's tickling Minho. He is lying with Minho's arms around him, nose in the nape of his hair. Minho is often awake during car rides, which is funny considering that of the five in the band he sleeps the most. Jonghyun sleepily responds with hums to Minho's murmuring. About horrifying birds, the surprising observations of children, about the relative similarities of truth and bedrocks and lies and earthquakes. Minho calls Jonghyun compact and sturdy, to which Jonghyun kind of takes as another short joke with some offense, and he goes, “yah,” willing as much menace as he can into it. He's not in a playful mood. Minho then elaborates: “You're a rock I would gratefully build a house upon.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
If Jonghyun gets to sit down and write about the last few months, what is the first thing he will record? In a retwisting of fate, that's where Jonghyun finds himself. At his desk in his room at home alone with Roo on the floor at his feet, and rather than first recording the tens of songs in his memory Jonghyun begins with what he knows. For two days straight, it rained. Ah, format? Bullet points, for brevity and speed. On the third day after that, a helicopter finds the two of them. The dark-skinned man communicates in gestures, smiles, and words that he and Minho didn't understand. But they donned the bulky life jackets and climbed up the rope ladder. The day they lost contact with the world was February 19th, 2013. Minho is the one who found Jonghyun. On their island, they found no other survivors. His sister tells him there were many other survivors. The day they are found is May 30th, and the day they return to Seoul is June 1st.  
  
Ultra tan Kim Jonghyun and Choi Minho, black haired with awful, frizzy split ends, have yet to emerge in the public eye or attend a schedule.  
  
Jonghyun moves on to what they didn't know, went on to surmise, measure, and become familiar with. The isle of Jinki, the rockslide Taemin, the path Kibum, the inlets they named after their manager hyungdeul. That one stupid hill which Jonghyun tells Minho with an earnestness that it's possibly his favorite spot, to which Minho quips that he's like the nipple of the hill. Whatever that means. Eight sleeping and napping spots. The nine connected tidepools of SoNyuhShiDae, five streams of f(x) that always run to the sea through days upon days of no rain. Even more that he named for himself, after family and old friends and favorite hangouts. Jonghyun doodles a map on the facing page, his messy handwriting is much to his dissatisfaction and keeps it from looking like one of those maps that authors insert in the index of their fantasy novels. Another bullet: a walk along the island's shore takes a day and a half give-or-take, of the daylight hours.  
  
And the following section is what he doesn't know, not exactly. His pauses for thinking have become much longer between each point. The window is open; birds here in Seoul are just as intrusively noisy and annoying as those on the island. Jonghyun smiles because he's not so different from the birds, his thoughts just as busy and chattering but merely different in terms of expression. He's on paper, they're singing away into time and space. It used to be a bigger island, and way back when, a volcano. Formerly inhabited by people. The structure at the top, with those rooms built right into the hills, people lived and gathered and celebrated holidays there. Perhaps there are even dead buried nearby, even within their favorite grassy clearing. Minho declared it his favorite spot on the island; more than the cool spaces deep beneath the elderly trees, more than the swimming hole, more than the beach. That same day, Jonghyun is lying on the grass while Minho waxes about the wind and bugs and burning sun. He doesn't interrupt Minho, says nothing as they both lay there. At that time, they had half an hour before they'd have to move again, to the other side of the clearing, to the next best spot of equal parts sun and shade.  
  
How does he begin to convey the scene and the feeling? Will Minho remember that time and place, and how much of it will be different, how much of the memory is the same for him? Did it stand out to Minho as it does for Jonghyun? He laughs, embarrassed and ever so slightly rueful. The definite feel of Minho's warm hand in his own, connecting the two of them at the top that somewhere island.  
  
The longer you're with someone the more difficult it is to find the best words. Jonghyun thinks to himself: challenge accepted.  
  
   
  
  
  
 

**Author's Note:**

> I mean no offense to the families and friends who lost loved ones in any (airplane or otherwise) tragedy over the seas. A curated tumblr was created to accompany this fic; consider them extra materials and notes that helped me write: [airilythoughtfully.tumblr.com](http://airilythoughtfully.tumblr.com/)  
> Started: August 2012  
> Finished: 25 April 2014
> 
> Last but not least, I made up a lot of if not all the personal background/details for both Jonghyun and Minho, aside from the obvious ones that are true. Thank you for reading.


End file.
